The Status Quo Essay Example for Free

The Status Quo Essay In Howard Zinn’s book, Passionate Declarations: Essays on War and Justice, Chapter 1 entitled, â€Å"Introduction: American Ideology,† begins with a discussion of a few instances in history where groups of people believed that other races and social classes were inferior to others (Zinn 1). The end result of these instances was that many, if not all, of the inferior people were killed (Zinn 1). From these occurrences, Zinn concludes that our thinking does not merely spark debates, but ultimately is a variable of life and death (Zinn 1). He also believes that although we live in a democratic country, the ideas of ethical behavior that were formulated by our forefathers has condemned us to accept them as right, without questioning why they are right (Zinn 3). These ideas were not framed by a group of conspirators, nor were they accidental; these ideas were a result of natural selection in which ideas were encouraged, financed, and pushed forward by those who were in power or by those who had great influence on the general public (Zinn 3). Although these beliefs were written off as correct, Zinn believes that if we decide to reexamine these beliefs, and see that they are not â€Å"natural† ideas, we have come to a major turning point: we are examining and confronting American ideology (Zinn 5). These ideas that are expressed in â€Å"Introduction: American Ideology,† are very sound because they help me to see why it is important to challenge the status quo. If I sit back and just allow people to feed me information about one fact or another, and I just absorb it all in, then I may not really be formulating my own beliefs, but accepting someone else’s. There should be a deeper meaning to what I believe further than what someone has dictated to me to be correct. I should ask intuitive questions about why someone views something as correct, and by that process, I might begin to clearly see their idea as acceptable. Oftentimes, many people, including myself, suppress what they believe in because as Zinn mentioned, these dissenting ideas are most often drowned in criticism because they are outside of the â€Å"acceptable or popular choices† (Zinn 4). By doing this, those who believe that their idea is right, maintain power. In a real world example, you may be hanging out with a group of friends at a party when all of a sudden, your friends start smoking marijuana. Everyone but you is an avid believer that smoking it is cool, and is acceptable because everyone else is doing it. You have never smoked marijuana a day in your life, but under the circumstances, you fall into peer pressure when a joint is passed your way. In this instance, you know you believe that smoking marijuana is wrong, but you suppress your beliefs since every single one of your friends is doing it, and by speaking up, your belief will most definitely be covered in criticism. The end result is that your group of friends maintains power over you, and will find it that much easier to influence you to smoke marijuana again. Metaphorically speaking, a great representation of how Zinn portrays the ideas of those in command is through â€Å"weeds.† A weed is a plant that overtakes the area in which it is located. Once it begins to grow, unless someone is willing to take the time to go and remove it from the area, it remains there. Likewise, the ideas that are seen in â€Å"Introduction: American Ideology,† are like weeds because they are established and passed off as right to the general public. Once these ideas are in place, they are hard to get rid of, even if many people dissent them. It must then take a strong group of people to try to â€Å"uproot† the ideas, and replace them with what the public believes is right. Moving forward, I can use the information that I have written about and apply it to my own life. I should begin to feel comfortable in challenging what I do not believe in, rather than being neutral about the issue because as Zinn mentions, in this day and age that we live in, neutrality is seen as a sign of acceptance in the way things are now (Zinn 7). I now see that I should begin to be my own self, and not just another grain of sand on the beach, living by the status quo. Works Cited Zinn, Howard. Passionate Declarations: Essays on War and Justice. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Print.

Christopher Columbus :: Christopher Columbus Essays

Columbus was a great explorer and a tremendous benefit to the world. Instead of listing his down sides, we should concentrate on all the things he has accomplished. Because of Columbus people live longer, achieved something many people would not have dared to do at his time, and today the world population is spread out throughout the world. For this, he should be celebrated for the great person that he was.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  First of all, because Columbus discovered the New World people now live 1/3 longer than they did during his time. Columbus’ breakthrough led the world into an agricultural revolution. As the supply of food increased, the health of the world also increased. As a result, people began to live longer. Today the population has multiplied ten times in the past 150 years. This all happened because of Columbus and his findings. We would not be as healthy human beings if were not for him.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Secondly, even though Columbus may have done things that are considered cruel, he was able to do something that no one else could and he did it with primitive equipment. He was able to find his way to the New World and back to Spain using only a compass, and astrolabe. He did have caravel ships with Lateen sail, but it was a miracle that he did what he did. Columbus was accused of cruelty to animals and humans, but so was everyone else at his time. Just like today everyone goes to school, everyone in Columbus’ time was cruel. Yes, Columbus wanted to enslave the Native Americans, but other people also wanted to enslave Africans. He should not be condemned because he was a man of his time when he was able to do so many great things.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  More over, without Columbus’ courage, we would all be living in Europe. Thanks to him, mankind is distributed throughout the entire world. Life would be a lot different if we were crowded, living in Europe. Now we have the Americas to spread out in. Yes, we may have taken the land from other people, but that is life. You have to protect your land if you want to keep it. Plus, the Native Americans should have to share the land. They have enough for themselves. People in Europe should not have to live like herds of cattle just so that the Native Americans can have their land.

American life Essay

Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun reflects the cultural context in which it was created, reflecting crucial changes in American life. In particular, it reflects the American mainstream’s new tolerance for civil rights and African Americans’ rising aspirations, but it also inspired a great deal of criticism from black leftist intellectuals for paying too little attention to black issues and focusing too much on integration. The play tells the story of the Younger family, who still live in their dilapidated Chicago apartment long after they migrated north and dream of improving their lives. Mama, the old-school matriarch, fulfills her late husband’s dream of buying a home, using his insurance money for a house in all-white Clyborne Park. (Her aspirations and actions seem modest, but they are rather bold for the time and imply the older generation’s wisdom. ) Her grown son Walter dreams of making a fortune but loses the family’s savings, though he redeems himself by deciding the family should move despite white neighbors’ disapproval. Ruth, his wife, is bitter but believes in Walter’s dreams and stands by him despite his faults. Beneatha, Walter’s flighty younger sister, is the most comical character; a college student aiming to become a doctor, she seeks her identity through two different suitors – rich, effete George Murchison (Hansberry’s symbol for affluent blacks’ pretensions) and Nigerian Joseph Asagai (who inspires Beneatha to reconnect with her heritage). It draws partly from Hansberry’s own experience regarding integration. Born into an affluent black family in 1930, Hansberry moved at age eight with her parents to Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood, then a white, middle-class enclave; he parents had to wage a long legal battle to move there, resulting in a Supreme Court decision that allowed racial covenants in housing. Like her family, the Youngers in A Raisin in the Sun face white neighbors who claim good intentions but try to discourage blacks from moving into the neighborhood. The family sees through Karl Lindner’s false friendliness, and Beneatha comments, â€Å"He said everybody ought learn to sit down and hate each other with good Christian fellowship† (Hansberry 107). The play appeared during a crucial phase of the civil rights movement, only five years after the Brown decision outlawed segregated facilities and only two years after the tense integration of Little Rock’s Central High School. Though the movement’s best-known campaigns focused on the South, author Mark Newman illustrates that the NAACP waged a long, successful campaign focused mainly on ending unwritten segregation and promoting integration in the North, especially Chicago (Newman 44). Indeed, Chicago was the site of extensive race riots in public housing in 1953 (Hanley et al 316), and in the 1960s Martin Luther King tried but failed to get Chicago’s neighborhoods to end their de facto segregation and stop driving out prospective black residents. Hansberry demonstrates that integration in the North was still a challenge, especially when the antagonists were not violent but superficially genial, like the Lindner character, who proposes a buyout and tells the Youngers, â€Å"I want you to believe me when I tell you that race prejudice simply doesn’t enter into it† (Hansberry 104), when it certainly does. When their meeting ends, Lindner’s words – â€Å"I hope you know what you’re getting into† (Hansberry 138) – betray his true feelings and perhaps those of Northern whites in general, who often favored integration but had patronizing attitudes and did not want black neighbors. In this, Hansberry launches a subtle but nonetheless clear attack on white hypocrisy. She also comments on the different facets of black society, which have different aims at this crucial time in their history. Mama has the most modest aspirations but also the most common sense; her simple, realistic desire for a home is both conservative and radical, since it involves integration, then the civil rights movement’s chief aim, though Mama is by no means militant. Walter, though fiery and impractical, sees her point of view after his own dream fails and takes a stand, refusing to defer Mama’s dream and telling Lindner they will move to Clyborne Park regardless â€Å"because my father – my father – he earned it† (Hansberry 138). The dream is Mama’s, but she and Walter together refuse to defer it any longer and act boldly. Meanwhile, Beneatha – the most comic character for her flightiness – represents younger, ambitious blacks’ efforts to find themselves. Studying to be a doctor, she rejects her mother’s traditional beliefs and dates two men who represent black youths’ aims. On one hand, George Murchison represents the black bourgeoisie, of whom Beneatha says, â€Å"[The] only people in the world who are more snobbish than rich white people are rich colored people† (Hansberry 34). Instead, she seeks her identity through Joseph Asagai, a Nigerian fellow student whose comment, â€Å"Assimilationism is so popular in your country† (Hansberry 48), makes her look away from integration as an answer. Walter, always humoring his sister, tells her, â€Å"You know, when the New Negroes have their convention . . . [you are] going to be the chairman of the Committee on Unending Agitation† (Hansberry 98). Though white audience hailed the play, black intellectuals did not receive it with equal regard. Writing in 1963, social critic Harold Cruse (a leftist who opposed integration in favor of Malcolm X-style separatism) excoriated Hansberry for catering to white liberals’ sensibilities, claiming she wanted to â€Å"assuage the commercial theater’s liberal guilt† and calling A Raisin in the Sun â€Å"a good old-fashioned, home-spun saga of some good working-class folk in pursuit of the American dream . . . in [whites’] fashion† (Cruse 278). In addition, he claimed Hansberry had an â€Å"essentially quasi-white orientation through which she visualizes the Negro world† (Cruse 283) and believed her not militant enough. Indeed, scholar Richard King claims that the play was part of a greater social context in which â€Å"cultural, racial, and religious differences were downplayed or denied in postwar America† (King 4). He claims that Hansberry downplayed her own characters’ blackness to the same degree that The Diary of Anne Frank downplayed its characters’ Jewish identity, and that Hansberry and others like her were â€Å"advocating the integrationist vision and falling prey . . . to ‘misapplied internationalism’† (King 273). However, Hansberry explores the black community’s different attitudes, rendering these criticisms ill applied. Though she was by no means militant and hailed from an affluent background, she experienced integration first-hand and knew it was not an easy sell-out (as the militant Cruse claimed). Instead, according to black scholar Jacqueline Bobo, Hansberry aimed to fight American popular culture’s still-prevalent negative black stereotypes and claimed in 1961, â€Å"I did not feel it was my right or duty to help present the American public with yet another latter-day minstrel show† (Bobo et al 184); instead, she wanted to present characters with dignity, intelligence, and genuine aspirations, which in 1959 was still a bold effort. The play is not militant, but neither does it whitewash its characters. A Raisin in the Sun is more than simply a play about a black family moving out of the ghetto; it reflects the social and cultural context of its time. It embraces the civil rights movement’s integrationist aims and reminds the audience that the Youngers’ move will not be easy, and it comments on black society’s conflicting outlooks while avoiding stereotypes. While it did not take a militant extreme by countering white racism with a racism of its own, it reflects a greater American context in which ending segregation was still a struggle, but one which the American mainstream supported and aspired to achieve (to varying degrees). REFERENCES Bobo, Jacqueline, Cynthia Hudley, and Claudine Michel, eds. The Black Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 2004. Cruse, Harold. The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. New York: William Morrow, 1967. Hanley, Sharon, Stephen Middleton, and Charlotte M. Stokes, eds. , The African American Experience. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Globe, 1992. Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. New York: Random House, 1959. King, Richard H. Race, Culture, and the Intellectuals, 1940-1970. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. Newman, Mark. The Civil Rights Movement. Westport CT: Praeger, 2004.

Amy Lowell American Poet and Imagist

Known for: promoted Imagist school of poetryOccupation: poet, critic, biographer, socialistDates: February 9, 1874 - May 12, 1925 Amy Lowell Biography Amy Lowell didnt become a poet until she was years into her adulthood; then, when she died early, her poetry (and life) were nearly forgotten -- until gender studies as a discipline began to look at women like Lowell as illustrative of an earlier lesbian culture. She lived her later years in a Boston marriage and wrote erotic love poems addressed to a woman. T. S. Eliot called her the demon saleswoman of poetry. Of herself, she said, God made me a businesswoman and I made myself a poet. Background Amy Lowell was born to wealth and prominence. Her paternal grandfather, John Amory Lowell, developed the cotton industry of Massachusetts with her maternal grandfather, Abbott Lawrence. The towns of Lowell and Lawrence, Massachusetts, are named for the families. John Amory Lowells cousin was the poet James Russell Lowell. Amy was the youngest child of five. Her eldest brother, Percival Lowell, became an astronomer in his late 30s and founded Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. He discovered the canals of Mars. Earlier hed written two books inspired by his travels to Japan and the Far East. Amy Lowells other brother, Abbott Lawrence Lowell, became president of Harvard University. The family home was called Sevenels for the Seven Ls or Lowells. Amy Lowell was educated there by an English governess until 1883, when she was sent to a series of private schools. She was far from a model student. During vacations, she traveled with her family to Europe and to Americas west. In 1891, as a proper young lady from a wealthy family, she had her debut. She was invited to numerous parties, but did not get the marriage proposal that the year was supposed to produce. A university education was out of the question for a Lowell daughter, although not for the sons. So Amy Lowell set about educating herself, reading from the 7,000 volume library of her father and also taking advantage of the Boston Athenaeum. Mostly she lived the life of a wealthy socialite. She began a lifelong habit of book collecting. She accepted a marriage proposal, but the young man changed his mind and set his heart on another woman. Amy Lowell went to Europe and Egypt in 1897-98 to recover, living on a severe diet that was supposed to improve her health (and help with her increasing weight problem). Instead, the diet nearly ruined her health. In 1900, after her parents had both died, she bought the family home, Sevenels. Her life as a socialite continued, with parties and entertaining. She also took up the civic involvement of her father, especially in supporting education and libraries. Early Writing Efforts Amy had enjoyed writing, but her efforts at writing plays didnt meet with her own satisfaction. She was fascinated by the theater. In 1893 and 1896, she had seen performances by the actress Eleanora Duse. In 1902, after seeing Duse on another tour, Amy went home and wrote a tribute to her in blank verse -- and, as she later said, I found out where my true function lay. She became a poet -- or, as she also later said, made myself a poet. By 1910, her first poem was published in Atlantic Monthly, and three others were accepted there for publication. In 1912 -- a year that also saw the first books published by Robert Frost and Edna St. Vincent Millay -- she published her first collection of poetry, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass. It was also in 1912 that Amy Lowell met actress Ada Dwyer Russell. From about 1914 on, Russell, a widow who was 11 years older than Lowell, became Amys traveling and living companion and secretary. They lived together in a Boston marriage until Amys death. Whether the relationship was platonic or sexual is not certain -- Ada burned all personal correspondence as executrix for Amy after her death -- but poems which Amy clearly directed towards Ada are sometimes erotic and full of suggestive imagery. Imagism In the January 1913 issue of Poetry, Amy read a poem signed by H.D., Imagiste. With a sense of recognition, she decided that she, too, was an Imagist, and by summer had gone to London to meet Ezra Pound and other Imagist poets, armed with a letter of introduction from Poetry editor Harriet Monroe. She returned to England again the next summer -- this time bringing her maroon auto and maroon-coated chauffeur, part of her eccentric persona. She returned to America just as World War I began, having sent that maroon auto on ahead of her. She was already by that time feuding with Pound, who termed her version of Imagism Amygism. She focused herself on writing poetry in the new style, and also on promoting and sometimes literally supporting other poets who were also part of the Imagist movement. In 1914, she published her second book of poetry, Sword Blades and Poppy Seeds. Many of the poems were in vers libre (free verse), which she renamed unrhymed cadence. A few were in a form she invented, which she called polyphonic prose. In 1915, Amy Lowell published an anthology of Imagist verse, followed by new volumes in 1916 and 1917. Her own lecture tours began in 1915, as she talked of poetry and also read her own works. She was a popular speaker, often speaking to overflow crowds. Perhaps the novelty of the Imagist poetry drew people; perhaps they were drawn to the performances in part because she was a Lowell; in part her reputation for eccentricities helped bring in the people. She slept until three in the afternoon and worked through the night. She was overweight, and a glandular condition was diagnosed which caused her to continue to gain. (Ezra Pound called her hippopoetess.) She was operated on several times for persistent hernia problems. Style Amy Lowell dressed mannishly, in severe suits and mens shirts. She wore a pince nez and had her hair done -- usually by Ada Russell -- in a pompadour that added a bit of height to her five feet. She slept on a custom-made bed with exactly sixteen pillows. She kept sheepdogs -- at least until World War Is meat rationing made her give them up -- and had to give guests towels to put in their laps to protect them from the dogs affectionate habits. She draped mirrors and stopped clocks. And, perhaps most famously, she smoked cigars -- not big, black ones as was sometimes reported, but small cigars, which she claimed were less distracting to her work than cigarettes, because they lasted longer. Later Work In 1915, Amy Lowell also ventured into criticism with Six French Poets, featuring Symbolist poets little known in America. In 1916, she published another volume of her own verse, Men, Women and Ghosts. A book derived from her lectures, Tendencies in Modern American Poetry followed in 1917, then another poetry collection in 1918, Can Grandes Castle and Pictures of the Floating World in 1919 and adaptations of myths and legends in 1921 in Legends. During an illness in 1922 she wrote and published A Critical Fable -- anonymously. For some months she denied that shed written it. Her relative, James Russell Lowell, had published in his generation A Fable for Critics, witty and pointed verse analyzing poets who were his contemporaries. Amy Lowells A Critical Fable likewise skewered her own poetic contemporaries. Amy Lowell worked for the next few years on a massive biography of John Keats, whose works shed been collecting since 1905. Almost a day-by-day account of his life, the book also recognized Fanny Brawne for the first time as a positive influence on him. This work was taxing on Lowells health, though. She nearly ruined her eyesight, and her hernias continued to cause her trouble. In May of 1925, she was advised to remain in bed with a troublesome hernia. On May 12 she got out of bed anyway, and was struck with a massive cerebral hemorrhage. She died hours later. Legacy Ada Russell, her executrix, not only burned all personal correspondence, as directed by Amy Lowell, but also published three more volumes of Lowells poems posthumously. These included some late sonnets to Eleanora Duse, who had died in 1912 herself, and other poems considered too controversial for Lowell to publish during her lifetime. Lowell left her fortune and Sevenels in trust to Ada Russell. The Imagist movement didnt outlive Amy Lowell for long. Her poems didnt withstand the test of time well, and while a few of her poems (Patterns and Lilacs especially) were still studied and anthologized, she was nearly forgotten. Then, Lillian Faderman and others rediscovered Amy Lowell as an example of poets and others whose same-sex relationships had been important to them in their lives, but who had -- for obvious social reasons -- not been explicit and open about those relationships. Faderman and others re-examined poems like Clear, With Light Variable Winds or Venus Transiens or Taxi or A Lady and found the theme -- barely concealed -- of the love of women. A Decade, which had been written as a celebration of the ten year anniversary of Ada and Amys relationship, and the Two Speak Together section of Pictures of the Floating World were recognized as love poetry. The theme had not been completely concealed, of course, especially to those who knew the couple well. John Livingston Lowes, a friend of Amy Lowells, had recognized Ada as the object of one of her poems, and Lowell wrote back to him, I am very glad indeed that you liked Madonna of the Evening Flowers. How could so exact a portrait remain unrecognized? And so, too, the portrait of the committed relationship and love of Amy Lowell and Ada Dwyer Russell was largely unrecognized until recently. Her Sisters -- alluding to the sisterhood that included Lowell, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Emily Dickinson -- makes it clear that Amy Lowell saw herself as part of a continuing tradition of women poets. Related Books Lillian Faderman, editor. Chloe Plus Olivia: An Anthology of Lesbian Literature from the 17th Century to the Present.Cheryl Walker. Masks Outrageous and Austere.Lillian Faderman. To Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have Done For America - A History.