Homelessness In America

Homelessness.  We hear about, and we see it first hand, but I don't think we really understand it and how serious it is until we have experienced it first hand.  It is easier to blame the homeless.  To assume their predicament is their own fault and thereby rationalize our unwillingness to give, to help, to care.  The. You are told that it is the system, all hen you argue that there isn anything you can do.  How can one person Chang th system?  It isn't my problem and for me to hop I hav to give up something of mine.  It is hard to get someone to help mak a change and lift up another when it requires sacrifice.  It is true, I am resentful of giving the dollar in my wallet.  Mainly because I will pass at least three people a day asking me for that one dollar and I have to choose who gets it and who doesn't.

When you take the time to look at homelessness in our country, the numbers are hard to believe .  It is estimated that over 578,000 people are homeless in the United States at any given moment(http://www.endhomelessness.org/pages/snapshot_of_homelessness).  Whole families are out on the street trying to make enough just to feed themselves, let alone pay the bills.  United States Veterans are ending up on the street each and every day after coming home from the service and finding their military skills don't warrant a job in today's economy.  It is estimated that their are 50,000 homeless veterans in the United States as of 2015 (http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/50000-homeless-veterans-nationwide-27990006).

How can we see these people every day, on the street corner, with a smile and a wave.  A "God Bless You" whether you give them a dollar or not.  Men and Women, our neighbors, struggling to survive and yet they are almost invisible to us.  We talk about them as if they are landmarks.  "Oh there is one man I see by 15th and L", as if the man was a new tree planted their.  And when you start a conversation about the homeless, how many negative stories do you hear?  "Oh I gave him a dollar and he asked for ten?"  or "This one man always whistles at me when I walk by, as if I'd be interested?"  The first step we need to make is to recognize that this is a problem.  We should not see our brothers and sisters on the street and not feel something.  Not be outraged at their predicament.

How can we help?  Find a shelter, donate food and clothing, open up a boarding house?  How about raising a voice?  Spreading awareness?
http://marthastable.org/
http://www.homelessshelterdirectory.org/cgi-bin/id/city.cgi?city=Washington&state=DC

Capitalism vs. Socialism

Oh the age old debate.  Capitalism vs. Socialism.  In the United States it has become Republican vs. Democrat.  And I'm not saying the 'evil" Socialism/Communism idea.  I mean Socialism: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism).  I'm sure many can see how the Democratic viewpoint is similar to this definition.  If not, I'd be happy to engage in a conversation on that subject.  And we have Capitalism: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capitalism).  I'm sure most can see how that fits the popular view of Republicans. 

Now why do I bring these up?  Well everything I hear from the news and politicians and from college professors is the argument of one over the other.  We need to abolish Capitalism or we need to abolish Socialism.  I hear many very passionate and convincing arguments (if not riddled with misinformation and twisted facts on both sides), but in case any one wasn't aware, the United States Government is a mixed system.  Our political system is a combination of Capitalism and Socialism.  The arguing and fighting is one side wanting more power than the other side.  Yet all we hear is one side saying we don't need the other side.  Of course we do.  Without the mixed system, the United States would be unrecognizable.  Capitalism is necessary because it ensures the people's right to freedom of choice.  They can open whatever business they want, buy whatever goods they want, and seek employment wherever they want without the Government telling them no (though these right have been disappearing each and everyday [http://cnsnews.com/commentary/phil-kerpen/america-brink-losing-constitutional-form-government-forever]) Socialism is necessary because the government is able to control certain industries, making sure that everyone has an equal access and share to certain services that are essential to our daily lives such as roads, law enforcement, social security, and military defense. 

Alright, so obviously each one has its individual flaws.  For instance, Capitalism if left unchecked can ultimately put the economic power in the hands of a few (as we have already seen) because pure Capitalism is in essence controlled by greed and the quest to serve yourself.  Creating business in an effort to make money.  Without ethics and morals, this can obviously lead to large disparities in wealth, with some making much much more than others. Socialism comes into play by regulating the free market in a way that reduces unfair and unethical practices that contribute to this wealth disparity and ensures that the free market remains a FREE market for all to try their hand at.  Now, on the flip side, Socialism if left unchecked places all the control and power in the hands of the government.  Traditionally, in history, this does not end well because no matter how well intentioned those in power are, eventually they will have to take away the rights of others for the good of the few.  To make everyone on an even playing field all the time, peoples' liberties are sacrificed.

So to bring this to today's conversations, the how fight between Socialism and Capitalism, Democrat vs. Republican, is about power and control.  Capitalism advocates want the government out of their way so they can operate without the government taking a cut and undermining their success.  Socialism advocates want regulations to ensure Capitalism doesn't create wealth disparity and that more government control creates a more even playing field.  Both have their good sides and both have their bad sides.  So my argument essentially is.  Why choose?  We need both.  Pure Capitalism is no good, and neither is Pure Socialism.  Pure Democratic is no good, and neither is Pure Republican.  And every argument you hear out there is just sound bites and catch lines reducing the complexity of each side into A or B, Blue or Red, and Good or Evil (both sides feel the other is such).  Such arguments only succeed in dividing our country and create harsh, ugly, and false arguments on both sides.  What we need to do is come together.  It is that middle ground that we find success.  A balance is what our country is supposed to be and what will work.  But that can only happen if we cease playing the blame game and demonizing our neighbors.  The majority of what you hear in the news is either taken out of context, or completely false.  What we need to do is open up dialogue with each other.  Get your information from the source and not through a channel that has edited the information through dozens of biased hands.  I for one, am fiscally Conservative and socially Liberal.  So do I have to sacrifice one set of principles for the other every time I vote?  Bankrupt the country for social issues of the people, or protect social issues of the people at the expense of our country?  Until we combine both sides, this argument will not stop until combustion occurs.

Religeous Persecution

Religious persecution is a problem that has been going on forever.  In today's media, you see a great deal about the persecution on muslims in the United States, and I do not argue that.  But Christianity is also under attack.  Not only are Christians being forced to by law to operate against the beliefs of their faith and religion, but Christians all over the world are being murdered in droves and it barely makes a peep in our news.  Islamic terrorists are making their voices heard by targeting and slaughtering Christians overseas (http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/24/world/terrorists-attacks-on-christianity/).  In the Middle East and Africa, peaceful innocent Christians are being targeted and killed simply for their faith (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/20/opinion/ronald-lauder-who-will-stand-up-for-the-christians.html?_r=0).  Yet despite the great frequency of these attacks, it barely makes a ripple in the United States.  Recently, a large number of Ethiopian Christians were executed on video which was released in February, yet how many people heard about it?  (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/04/19/isil-ethiopian-christians/26026769/).  They lost their lives simply for not converting to Islam.  Where is the outrage?  While such attacks on Christians is prevalent, our country continues to ignore it.  We also have begun to alienate our ally, Israel and side up to Muslim countries that have sworn Israel as their mortal enemy.  Does this make since to anyone? 

Hillary Clinton was caught on video saying that Christians in America have to change their beliefs on social issues, going so far as to say that they must be forced to changed through the law and political will.  Is this really the country we live in?  A country where our leaders are creating laws to force Christians to go against their faith, laws that go against a constitutional right to the practice of ones faith.  It seems that only applies to faiths that go along with the popular political power at the time.  (http://shoebat.com/2015/04/24/hilary-clinton-christians-in-america-must-deny-their-faith-in-christianity/).

I am not trying to argue that we should not worry about the persecution of Muslims in the world.  Their practice of faith should be protected just as much as Christians.  Racial profiling and confusion among Muslims and extremists is a growing problem that we must address.  I am only arguing that While we seek to protect our Muslim neighbors, let us not forget our Christian neighbors as well and the struggles that they are facing.  Struggles that the news has unfortunately been ignoring.

Sexism

Social Issue of the day.  Sexism.  For those that do not know what Sexism is, here is a helpful definition.  According to the Merriam Webster dictionary (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sexism), "Sexism is unfair treatment of people based on their sex".  Ironically, the online version adds "especially unfair treatment of women".  Now let me preface this by saying that yes, I am a man.  And yes, I totally agree that society has traditionally placed men in a position of power and women have historically been marginalized by the male population.  I will also agree that today women are still marginalized by sexism in both social and professional environments.  However, I find that added definition sexist.  Sexism, much like Racism, should not be exclusively tied to one group of people.  How are we supposed to fight such unfair views if we make the terms unfair? 

Can you argue that a women claiming "all men are pigs" isn't sexist?  Or can you argue that a men saying "all women are hens" is somehow more sexist because sexism against women is more prevalent?  How come it is still socially acceptable (though not legally acceptable everyone) for a woman to hit a man?  Because it is assumed that he can take it?  There are obvious unfair gender roles in our society that affect the way we think and act but please understand that it is unfair to both genders and not just women.  Men suffer from sexism to.  In fact, established gender roles make it socially unacceptable for a man to claim that they are a victim of sexism.  How is that fair?  When a man claims that he is a victim of sexism, what do you automatically think of him?  Does he become less of a man in your eyes?  Does he seem weaker, sadder, less than he was before? 

How about when a man claims to have been raped by a women, what is our reaction?  Do we take him seriously?  Some people claim that it isn't physically possible, others that it isn't possible because men are horn dogs.  What the hell?  It is definitely possible and does happen.  Many instances of men being forced into sex with women against their will are played in media as jokes.  Just look at "The Pineapple Incident" in How I Met Your Mother, Old School, 40 Day sand 40 Nights, and Get Him To The Greek.  Today's culture paints men as the ones giving the sex and women as the ones receiving.  The very legal definition of rape, "The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim" was only updated in 2012 from "the carnal knowledge of a female, forcibly and against her will"(http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/09/living/chris-brown-female-on-male-rape/).

I am in no way trying to take away from the plight of women.  I fully understand and support the struggle for equality and for a voice to the female population.  I am simply asking for just that, an equal voice for everyone.  And I am not blaming women either.  I am blaming the culture that we live in, the culture that men created.  A society where a women can dress as a man and be called strong but a man dressed as a women is called weak.  Where a man that stands up and says he was raped is seen as less than a man.  What kind of a society is this, where the worst thing you can call a man is a woman?  Where if he is victimized, he is doubted, laughed at, and if believed, he is no longer a man?  I fully support women's rights and the fight for equality, but I argue that both men and women (or women and men if you prefer) have voices in that movement.  Men also suffer from sexism and a man's world.

Interracial couples

Listening to the audiobook for Americanah.  There is a moment in the book where the main character discuss how bite men are not interested in black women, and if so then only the light skinned women.  This small quip got me thinking and I've found myself noticing those mixed couples throughout this weekend.  Turns out that I have seen four couples in three days where the man was white and the woman was a fairly dark African American woman.  I even say an interracial gay couple where it was a white man and an extremely dark man.  It first shot the author's statement to hell and second surprised me.  As a white man I have not gotten much attention from dark African American women and I have always been rather open when it comes to dating.  Heck I'm married to a Puerto Rican woman from the Bronx.  The discussion on race also got me looking at tv shows and how white people are portrayed.  I will immediately concede that African Americans and other races have been very negatively portrayed in television throughout thee ages.  Recently though, I've found the tables turned.  White people in television shows such as Blackish, fresh off the boat, Ro , and other shows with a main cast not being white have shown the white people in a. Dry negative way.  The Steve Harvey show only had white characters who were stupid or ignorant, the same with Moesha. Fresh off the boat portrays all of the white people in Orlando as presidiums and ignorant.  It is hard to see this and think that is how other people see white people in America.  The reactions and assumptions people make about me without bothering to get to know me just because of my skin color and how my group is portrayed in society.  White men in the United States are racist (intentional or unintentional).  White men have money from the work of other races.  White men don't know the struggle.  Have people seen trailer parks in the south?  They aren't all what is portrayed on media and television.  White, black, Latino, all struggling to make ends meet.  All trying to survive in today's economy.  When the white man was passing out favors and opportunities to other white men, they must have skipped me.  

Education in America

We are talking this week about Education.  That is a pretty broad term, Education.  How does one define Education?  What is one's philosophy on Education?  What is wrong with education in America and what can be done to fix it?

Obviously I don't have the answers to what would fix the education system in this country, and if I did I doubt anyone of significance would listen to me.  But I can point to obvious problems that the system has from personal experience.  I grew up in East Texas, mostly in poor white trash trailer parks and took the school bus to public schools from K-12.  Due to finances my family moved a lot and I attended many schools throughout my student career including four different high schools.  Whether large or small I usually ended up in a poor school in a poor neighborhood and they had much in common.  For one is class size.  Classes are crammed full of students with very little in the way of supplies and textbooks to accommodate each student.  Schools would run a block schedule to alleviate the daily course load but you still had young and untested teachers trying to reign in an army of young kids and/or adolescents.  In fact my teachers growing up were usually either a young inexperienced teacher fresh out of school or an elderly teacher who was either to tired or to lazy to teach the students who didn't want to learn. (Perhaps they grew weary of trying to reach the children who didn't try?) Teachers had a set course plan that they would follow but we were never able to fit it all into the semesters.  Many teachers would use the "death by PowerPoint" method and have students just write out everything they would need to know for tests and exams.


One thing that really sticks out for me was the attitude that if the student didn't want to learn, then the teacher wasn't going to waste their effort.  Teachers would focus on those one or two go-getters with future college written all over them and ignore many of the students that required more attention.  I for one had trouble studying and a very short attention span so keeping up with the class was always hard for me.  That coupled with my family constantly moving in the middle of the school year so I had to catch up to what a new class was covering.  Very few teachers took the time to get me up to speed or facilitate my visual learning style.  If your individual learning style didn't fit with that teacher's particular teaching style then you were S.O.L. (s*** out of luck).


I don't want to give the idea that every teacher I had was bad.  In fact I had many great teachers growing up that were passionate, took the time to help me master the material, and saw potential in me when I did not.  I just think that schools, poor schools in particular, need to either root out bad teachers, provide them with better training, or a bit of both.  (http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21625653-american-teachers-need-more-money-training-feedback-collaboration-mentoring-and)  I am not big on letting the Federal Government handle every single social problem in this country and am a firm believer in letting State governments handle their issues, but education is one of those things that impacts us as an entire country.  It is what will either ensure or doom the future of this great nation.  We need to focus on providing our schools, ALL of our schools with the right equipment, staff, and resources required to help our young generation grow to keep up and compete with those of other nations.  Personally I say scrap the overly funded private schools and funnel that money into public education.  In truth we need school reform.  Not the "school reforms" that Democrat and Republican politicians have been doling out but real school reform.  I'm talking an Education Revolution.  This country cannot continue to complete on a Global scale in terms of economics, business, technology, etc. if the literacy rate of our kids continues to fall.  If we keep producing under-educated Americans.

A special note I would like to add here is on my philosophy of education.  Obviously children must learn reading, writing, and arithmetic.  These are tools created to communicate and operate in the modern world.  What I mean is the goal of education.  What is the purpose of it.  I don't think that education extends to just memorizing lines of text, dates, and names or solving mathematical formulas.  Yes these help with critical thinking but what about creative thinking?  I believe that education must include experiences.  Experiences that show us knew things, new ideas, and new methods of understanding.  I believe we need to expose ourselves to everything this world has to offer.  That is how you grow as a human being. (http://www.lotc.org.uk/) Learn a new language, learn to play an instrument, take a martial arts course, climb a mountain, visit a foreign country, take an improv class, the list goes on.  Really it is about connecting to the world we live in as a whole and those we share it with.  There is something to be said about reading all about the Galapagos Islands compared to living there for a month.  The tactile responses from seeing, smelling, touching, and tasting is in itself a valuable learning experience that we shouldn't miss out on.  Most of all, the experience of making connections with other people is a rich opportunity that helps us to grow.
(http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education-update/oct10/vol52/num10/Learning-Outside-the-Classroom.aspx)

Oppression

So this week we are talking about Oppression.  Systematic oppression.  The kind of oppression that seems to be built into the our community.  The kind that controls and governs our social concepts and framework.  The word that shouts out loudest in my mind is Economic Oppression.  Growing up as a poor kid in several decrepit trailer parks meant learning to live on very little.  Growing accustomed to turning the kitchen lights on and seeing the cockroaches and mice scatter.  Having a childhood like that, developing the idea that you will never be able to make more out of life.  The whole economic system is designed to make the gap between the poor and the wealthy enormous and we have been taught that you need to have money to make money.  That you need to be the smartest in order to win scholarships or the most athletic to bank on a sports contract.  This makes kids believe that they have to be the best and that not being the best means failure.  Many out there, much like me, knew that we were not the smartest or strongest or most talented.  The world taught us that we would never achieve anything, that we would never change our circumstances.  Life grinds us into the dirt and lays us low.  Those children are taught that without some helping hand they will never leave the trailer park and most never do.  They accept that life believing that it won't get any better unless they win the lottery or have an unknown wealthy next of kin pass away.

The two major powers in this country, the Government and Corporate America, both argue that the other is crushing the little guy.  They say they are for our benefit and the other sucks us dry.  The truth is that they both suck us dry.  Corporate America has companies profiting off of the cheap labor of uneducated poor class.  The government keeps rapidly growing (meaning more tax income to fund it) while ignoring the equally rapid to resolve the struggles of the middle class, but doesn't mention that this new division or team costs thousands of dollars to operate and maintain, a cost that falls on the very class it seeks to help.  Then you have corporate america that claims that business build jobs, but in the name of profit they take those jobs overseas for a better return.  It seems to me that while the big rich folks (and yes that also means you career politicians on both side of the aisle who have made millions off of your books deals elbow rubbing) fight over who to blame for the poor Americans at the bottom, every step you take continues to increase that financial gap.  Every time someone in a suit goes on television to talk about how great they are and what they are doing to help me, all I see is the gears behind them working to take my dollar.