I feel as if my book relates more closely with the discrimination and racism that black people still face today in society. Both black women and men face their fair
share of racism today, although some deal with it more than others. There are also more subtle, underlying effects of discrimination, such as the wage gap. Typically, a black woman will be paid 64 cents for every dollar a white man makes. A connection of discrimination and racism in my book would include when Khalil was innocently shot, just because he was stereotyped by the officer and was “assumed” to have a weapon on him. This also heavily relates to the murder of Trayvon Martin, another young black boy wrongly accused of being “dangerous”, which ultimately costed him his life. This also was a motive of the Black Lives Matter Movement, another huge topic frequently discussed within the book.
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My book is based on the events and life of a 16 year old year old girl named Starr Carter. She is drawn to activism, more specifically the "Black Lives Matter" protests, after her she witnesses her unarmed friend, Khalil, being shot to death by the police. I feel as if this book shows various connections to recent Black Lives Matter protests and activism, because often times in the book, many protests and rally’s go on relating to this issue in specific. A lot of people were angry towards the police that Khalil was killed, and brought out their anger and frustrations during the protests. Starr, on the other hand, had a hard time trying to figure things out, because she was the only one who actually witnessed Khalil being shot, meaning she was the only hope of getting him justice. This book also seems to take ideas from older protests and activist groups, such as the Black Panther party, showing inspiration in the black lives matter movement. These people in the book also take action like the black panther party by trying to receive justice by “any means necessary”, a common phrase used by those at the time meaning that violence was acceptable, if it created change.
Introduction Do you know what it feels like to be living on the streets, sleeping in an alleyway, and having looks of disgust shot at you? Homelessness is when someone has inadequate housing or living situations, whether it be living on the streets, staying in a shelter or in any other unstable or non-permanent situation. When a person cannot find a job or a way to earn money to afford housing, they are forced into homeless shelters or to live on the streets. About twenty percent of people in the United States of America currently lack adequate housing. (White 1) When someone is homeless they feel that their life is worthless or they are not cared for. Everyone should care about this issue because one day you could find yourself homeless on the streets. How would you feel about people not caring a drop about you? The reason we chose this issue is that we can empathize for all the homeless people, as we have seen the effects of homelessness on the body and mind. When one of our group members visited Africa he saw kids around the age of five to six walking on the streets and wearing rags giving him the evil eye, showing the resentment and jealousy homeless people hold toward those with stable housing and food supply. Homelessness negatively impacts our society as a whole. Those in poverty have more tendency to commit crimes than others. Taxes have to be raised in order to provide more shelter and food. Hunger negatively affects people's ability to work and overall decreases productivity. The ones most affected from this issue are those that are homeless themselves. Their mental health starts to be affected negatively and many start using drugs. Those who are homeless have many troubles that can be fixed with our help. The Issue Did you know that of the 4,000 homeless people in Wake County, 2,736 of them are Wake County students? (Raleigh Rescue Mission 2018) Homelessness is an issue anyone can face. One moment you could be relaxing in your multi-million dollar house, and the next moment you are on the street corner asking passing cars for spare change. Homelessness has always been an issue and it continue if our community does not change. “Socialists also recognize that poverty under capitalism is largely maintained by a skewed distribution of wealth and services, not by lack of a work ethic.” (Duhalde 2013) While our country’s Capitalist government is amazing in some ways, it also has some flaws like harvesting the issue of homelessness. Most people have never heard of invisible homelessness. Invisible homelessness is when a person doesn’t have a stable home and is crashing at a differents friend’s house every night. Almost 1 in 12 Wake County residents have sheltered someone who might otherwise be homeless. (Raleigh Rescue Mission 2018) If the amount of people that are invisibly homeless were counted in the statistics, there would be a lot more homeless people on record. There are many reasons as to why a person would be homeless. A few of those reasons are:
There are many effects homelessness has on people and especially children. Here are some shocking facts:
Homelessness doesn’t just affect the individual people, but also the community. The effects of homelessness on society can be quite costly, not only in terms of tax dollars spent but on the strain it puts on social agencies, individuals and families. Taxpayer’s hard earned money is used to fund shelters, pay for homeless people’s medical bills, and pay to fund jails where a many homeless people sadly end up. According to HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, it would be cheaper to solve the problem of homelessness as opposed to continuing to pay their expenses. The tax dollars could go towards education, infrastructure, and so much more that we could all benefit from. One homeless person costs taxpayers 40,000 dollars a year. (Moorhead 2012). Also, homelessness isn’t a good look for a location trying to attract tourists. Tourism increases jobs and the wealth of an area. Another negative effect of homelessness on the community is crime. A fifth of homeless people have committed imprisonable offences like shoplifting. (Ramesh 2010) When people are put in stressful situations they will do anything they have to to get out of it and survive. If this issue is not taken care of, taxes will continue to go up, crime levels won’t go down, and homelessness’ victims will continue to struggle. The Solution Since homelessness is such a big issue in our community, there are a lot of people desperately looking for ways to help the homeless population. Over time, people who were willing to give have come up with various solutions to lessen the burdens placed upon those without a home to live in. While taking the number of homeless people into account, one issue we can all agree on is that the homeless may have a hard time gaining access to food. A lot of these people do not know when their next meal will come. The Raleigh Rescue Mission in particular, is known for giving meals to those in need. Typically, they’ll serve over 140,000 meals per year. A solution to those going hungry, would be making more food available to those who are in need. The Raleigh Rescue Mission is an organization which helps the homeless throughout the city. They provide meals for those who need it, and have helped plenty of people get back on their feet. They happen to offer a selection of volunteer services, one of which directly helps people who need food. They allow you to help prepare 60-65 meals for their overnight emergency shelter, so that shelter guests will have a source of food available to them once they leave the shelter the following morning. By them doing this, they can provide one more meal that may save a life. We still need to help the homeless, because there are still people who are living in poverty, who cannot find an adequate meal, or shelter to stay. These are basic human rights that should be applied to every human being. What can we do to help? Many homeless people in our community do not know where their next meal is coming from. Those in poverty have trouble maintaining a stable food source. The Urban Ministries in Wake County is a non-profit organization that helps provide shelter, food and medicine for those who are less fortunate. Maintaining a healthy nutrition is important and Urban Ministries has a food pantry that can help those in need. They provide food for struggling families to help get them back on their feet. We have the ability to help those within poverty is by hosting a food drive. With the help of Martin’s students donating food over a couple of weeks we can make a difference by filling the food pantry at Urban Ministries. The food drive will start a week before our day of service. Our goal for this project is to collect 400 boxes and cans of food for those in need. This is a measurable goal that we are able figure out. When students enter the school building they can drop off food in the donation pile either outside the front office or student services. Posters will be needed to advertise the food drive Two of our group members are Martin Ambassadors and we can ask this group to help make the posters. We will ask the assistant principals to remind each grade level during lunch to bring in food donations. Large boxes are needed to collect the food in. The cafeteria stores boxes in the kitchen so we will ask the cafeteria ladies if we are able to use them for our food drive. On the day of service those who signed up will sort the food by category such as, dry goods, canned goods, beverages, sauces and spreads. We will do this at Martin in the cafeteria. This space is empty in the morning so it will be available for our use. Everyone who signed up for this project will help deliver the food to Urban Ministries in a bus. Sammy Hobgood, the volunteer coordinator at Urban Ministries, has communicated with one of our group members and discussed the requirements and availability for this project. One chaperone is needed per five people and there can be a little or as many students for participation. He will be at Urban Ministries to provide guidance during the food drop off. A three week notice is necessary for this project in order to prepare. Urban Ministries welcomes us to host a food drive because every little bit counts. We should help our community as much as we can because you never know when you might need help from your community. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world: indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”-Margaret Mead Bibliography DeRonja, Emily M. “Food Drive for Urban Ministries.” Message to Sammy Hobgood 26 January 2018 DeRonja, Emily M. “Food Drive for Urban Ministries.” Message to Sammy Hobgood 26 January 2018 DeRonja, Emily M. “Group Volunteer for Martin Middle School.” Message to Sammy Hobgood 25 January 2018 Dr. Schwartzbard, Julie ”factors that affect focus and concentration.” Bettermind. January 31. 2018 <https://www.bettermind.com/articles/factors-that-affect-focus-and-concentration/> Duhalde, David. “Capitalism and Poverty: A Socialists Analysis.” Democratic Socialists of America. 2 June 2006. 26 January 2018 <http://www.dsausa.org/capitalism_and_poverty> Hobgood, Sammy M. “Food Drive for Urban Ministries.” Message to Emily DeRonja 26 January 2018 Hobgood, Sammy M. “Food Drive for Urban Ministries.” Message to Emily DeRonja 26 January 2018 Hobgood, Sammy M. “Food Drive for Urban Ministries.” Message to Emily DeRonja 26 January 2018 “Homelessness.” Raleigh Rescue Mission. 2018. 28 January 2018 <http://www.raleighrescue.org/homelessness/> “How Many People with Serious Mental Illness Are Homeless.” Treatment Advocacy Center. 25 July 2014. 1 January 2018 <http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/fixing-the-system/features-and-news/2596-how-many-people-with-serious-mental-illness-are-homeless> “Impact of homelessness.” Homeless Link. 2018. 24 January 2018. Moorhead, Molly. “HUD secretary says a homeless person costs taxpayers $40,000 a year.” Politifact. 12 March 2012. 26 January 2018 <http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/mar/12/shaun-donovan/hud-secretary-says-homeless-person-costs-taxpayers/> Randeep, Ramesh. “A fifth of all homeless people have commited a crime to get off the streets.” The Guardian. 22 December 2010. 28 January 2018 <https://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/dec/23/homeless-committing-crimes-for-shelter> Thoeni,Katherine“Homelessness in our community affects us all” Unitedwaymcca. January 31. 2018. <http://www.unitedwaymcca.org/homelessness-our-community-affects-us-all> “Volunteer.” Raleigh Rescue Mission. 2018. 25 January 2018 <http://www.raleighrescue.org/get-involved/volunteer/> “What is the official definition of homelessness.” Nhchc.. January 31. 2018. <https://www.nhchc.org/faq/official-definition-homelessness/> “Why Are People Homeless?.” Salvation Army. 2017. 24 January 2018. <http://www.salvationarmy.org.au/en/Who-We-Are/our-work/Homelessness/Why-are-people-homeless/>Gillian B. White”rural america’s silent housing crisis”theatlantic.com January 31. 2018 <https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/01/rural-americas-silent-housing-crisis/384885/>
For a long time, I have always believed that people should be aware that racism still exists today in society. Ever since I was younger, I’ve realized that racism still is very prevalent. Although it wasn’t bad as it was decades ago, it still exists and still affects minorities of all ages worldwide. I myself have had multiple encounters within my lifetime. Considering I’m only 13, this is a big thing for me. I’ve experienced it ranging from a few years ago, to a few days ago in places such as online, in public, and even in school.
From the moment I was a young child, up until now, my mother would always say; “Ariana, you have to work hard in life.” I always questioned why, wondering why it was such a big deal. I took it upon myself to do some research as I got older, and I learned that in reality, I would have to work twice as hard as my white peers to get the same treatment, respect, and earnings as them in society. I felt slightly infuriated with the situation, feeling that it was wrong, but knowing there was nothing I could do. I soon came to find that for every dollar a white man makes, a black woman (my future self), would make roughly $0.75 cents. While growing up and interacting with more people in my life, I realized some people would treat me differently because of the color of my skin. I always knew it was wrong, but I felt as if I couldn’t speak against it because I was so young. I thought it was wrong to have a voice of my own. Once while I was in class, I had gotten into an argument with a young, white boy. He had gotten really worked up and angry, and began venting to his friends. While ranting and snickering, I overheard him refer to me as a “nigger with nappy hair.” I was appalled and angry that he would even refer to me as such, and that he said the word without any remorse. I teared up as his friends burst into laughter, taking the word as a lighthearted joke. Being one of the only black children in the classroom, I figured there wasn’t much I could do anyway. Sometimes while in school, I’ll notice that most people don’t set very high standards for me. Attending a primarily caucasian school, and being a black student has shown me that I’ll typically be thrown into a boat of generalizations and common stereotypes about my race. In order to surpass those limitations, I will almost always have to prove myself to be more “superior” than my peers, which will have negative effects on my reputation most of the time. I was upset and frustrated that I would even be grouped into a category of “dumb, ghetto black children” just because of the color of my skin. I thought that I shouldn’t feel the need to break the stereotypes of uneducated people who view us all as the same. In conclusion, I wish more people understood that racism does still exist in 2017, and it’s still an issue. Although more privileged and more fortunate people may not experience it, it’s still a problem that affects many minorities worldwide on a regular basis. Things will not fully be equal until we all receive the same treatment and respect as those who are currently more privileged in society. |
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