A More Perfect Union: Class 5-5-15

In small group today, we continued to watch "A More Perfect Union" which based off of racism in America and the key point was trying to figure out how it got that way by going back into history. I thought it was interesting when they showed the parts of when Barack Obama became president and many people thought that "racism is over"... but that doesn't change anything. In the documentary they claimed that racism is institutionalize and structural, meaning one large change is not going to change anything. This point got me thinking: is there ever going to be an end to racism or is it going to be a regular thing in our everyday lives? I was also wondering if the same thing could happen with the arguments of gay rights... do you think this can be similar to racism ending?

Hernandez vs. Texas

Hernandez vs. Texas (1945) was a US Supreme Court case deciding whether Latinos should be under the protection of the 14th amendment. The US took over many territories that belonged to Mexico and were offered US citizenship in order to work in the country. Mexican-Americans were later seen as white, but their citizenship continued to be challenged. They were never treated as first class citizens and received social isolation, negative commenting on their intelligence, and segregated school systems. During WWII, 300,000 Mexican-Americans were involved in the war and they believed that the successes they achieved would earn them the right to be treated as white; however, that wasn't the case. Felix Longoria was a hero from WWII and died during the war, he wanted to be buried in the Arlington National Cemetery. There were arguments about whether or not he should be allowed to be buried there and he luckily was buried in his ideal location. The 14th Amendment continued to not be acknowledged and the Supreme Court didn't believe that Longoria's case didn't justify their case, until the case of Hernandez and Espinoza. Hernandez killed Espinoza and was guilty of that, but during the trial he had to be given a jury of his peers and since Mexican-Americans are categorized as white then the jury they are given must be white and they must be treated with the same rights as them. Gus Garcia and Carlos Cadena, the lawyers on the case, challenged the double standards. The double standard was that Mexican-American were only considered white when it was in favor of the government. Hernandez had a retrial and the result was the jury was changed with more of his peers. This small step allowed them to challenge the school system, employment system, and the housing market.

Discussion on Friday

The discussion on Friday was about if offensive words can be used by a certain group of people or they should not be used in at all. We discussed that if a group of people gets offended by a certain word, they shouldn't use it themselves and say things such as "I can use this word because I am ____." However, if you don't approve of other people using the word, I believe neither should you. In our class, we discussed that if you are gay you can use the word, however, you can not use the "N" word. I don't agree with this, because if you believe that you can use a word because you use it to "define" yourself but don't allow other people to use it in the same manner, then I believe neither no one else should either. Especially if there are other derogatory words that offend you and you don't use than you shouldn't use any of them.

Class 5-1-15

Today in class we started watching A Perfect Union which was revolving around African Americans in the United States trying to fight for their rights because there were sick of being treated as second-class citizens. Martin Luther King Jr. was a major inspiration to all the African Americans in the U.S. at the time. However, when he was shot it had shattered the Blacks hearts and thoughts that they could protest peacefully. In class we discussed that even if a law is passed, if no one is there to enforce the law than is it actually relevant? If a law has been passed but there is nothing being done to enforce it people become frustrated and may even break out in acts of violence. I believe people used acts of violence in these cases because their voices were not being heard and the only way they could draw attention was through violence.

Interesting Take on how the "past" is not "past"...

Ponder.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-end-at-appomattox-20150420-story.html

Update on Armenian Genocide

A few articles if interested...

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-armenian-genocide-anniversary-20150424-htmlstory.html

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-armenian-genocide-march-los-angeles-20150424-story.html

On the 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz

Article about Elie Wiesel.

Check it out.

http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2015/01/27/had-we-been-warned-many-of-us-would-not-have-gone-to-auschwitz-says-survivor/?iid=ob_article_organicsidebar_expansion&iref=obnetwork