Opportunity or Opression?

This week we talked about the myth of individual opportunity and what it really means to be successful. I honestly don’t believe that there is equal opportunity because not everyone has the same chances or opportunities to rise up in the world. We read an essay called From Ragged Dick by Horatio Alger about a poor uneducated boy suddenly given a chance to move significantly higher up on the social totem pole.

Every once in a while, we hear of a rags to riches story, but how often do they really happen? What had to happen to get us from under class to upper-or even middle class? The cold, hard truth is that we don’t have equal opportunity or decent chances that we can rise in our social standing.

 Let’s take doctors for instance; doctors are classified as a respectable peer group. Doctors earn a fairly good amount of money, they’re respected, and they live pretty good lives. Do we all have the opportunity to become doctors? No, because even though they get paid well, they had to pay a lot of money to go to med school and countless years of other higher education. Some people can’t afford to send their kids to high school. They obviously do not have good chances of becoming doctors if they had to drop out of high school to get a fast food job. Is it possible for them to become doctors? Technically, yes, but the chances are so slim it’s devastating.

My point is that in our current society, there are so many obstacles one has to overcome in life to keep their parent’s social standing, much less go beyond what their parents did. It is totally possible to rise above, but chances are very slim. Chances are out there, you just need to find them, work for them and hope for the best.

Poposition 8

            This week we read essays based off of Proposition 8 and certain people opinions on whether to vote yes or no. Proposition 8 is a law that made gay marriage illegal in the state of California. Different authors talked about their views on the whether the law should be passed or not, clearly depicting the pros and cons of the matter at hand.

            In Jenifer Morse’s essay she talks about being for Proposition 8 not because she hates gays or gay marriage but because of her beliefs on marriage. She states in her essay “Those of us who support Proposition 8 believe that children deserve at least the chance to have a relationship with a mom and a dad.”  I fully agree with her on that statement because it is crucial for a child to have both figures in their life to guide them and help them make good decisions.

            On the other end of the spectrum we read an essay from Evan Wolfson, who argues that there is no set definition that marriage must involve a man and a woman. Wolfson further goes into the lack of rights that gay couples have and the judgment that gays and lesbians face everyday.  Although I don’t agree with their lifestyle, I really don’t think that committing hate crimes will solve the problem.

            At the end of the day, it’s all about treating each other with respect regardless of your personal beliefs and I choose to be against gay marriage and I also choose not to judge criticize or hate someone simply based on their sexual orientation.

The Model Family

Recently (5 minutes ago) I read 2 very different excerpts from the book Rereading America (Colombo, Cullen, and Lisle) and both the excerpts dealt with the idea of what family looks like, showing different kinds of families and the rolls that certain people play in the family.

The first excerpt was An Indian Story by Roger Jack depicting what it was like to grow up in a Native American family strongly rooted in their ancestry and tied to the traditions and custom of their people. Jack talks about living with his aunt Greta after a heated argument at his father’s house causing him to leave. Jack doesn’t dwell much on what the model family looks like, but he acknowledges the fact that the kind of family he had wasn’t your everyday run-of-the-mill family, which is what made his story so capturing. It gives a beautiful picture of what family bonds should look like, even in an undesirable situation.

The second excerpt was entitled What We Really Miss About the 1950’s by Stephanie Coontz. In this essay Coontz asks why everyone thinks the 1950’s was the greatest time for family then goes into detail about what was really taking place in this decade. She shares statistics about the 1950’s that wasn’t shown on television. Many sitcoms in the 50’s depicted the bread-winning father, the housewife and the perfect kids that never fought and always had smiles on their faces. The model families depicted in these shows were unrealistic and cliché at best and this essay shows how it was never really like that and how the families in the shows may have deceived an entire generation into believing that the 50’s were perfect.