Category: x Archive Assignments

Research- LifeisSublime

Broken Promises

Once when I was a little girl I witnessed a car accident. My family was driving home from a weekend spent with my grandparents sometime in the late fall. We were singing along to the radio when the music suddenly faded out into the distance and sounds of metal on metal echoed through the air. We were stopped at a red light with a front row seat of this horrific accident; a car, out of control, barreling through the red light and colliding with another car right into the driver’s car door. The two cars both spun out and hit a nearby guardrail. My father flung his seatbelt off and ran towards the wreck. When he opened the door of the driver that was hit the door fell off it’s hinges and into the road. The woman in the driver’s seat had cuts all along her arms and face. What I remember the most about that day though was what the woman was saying. From the backseat of my parent’s car I can still hear the woman ,who was hanging on to her life, screaming at my father over and over, “Please do not take me to the hospital, I can not afford health insurance…”.

The healthcare system in this country was put in place to help it’s nation’s people afford medicine, doctor visits, treatment plans, and overall health care. The government funds certain programs that it’s people can access if they qualify depending on how much salary they make in a year. Throughout the years the organizations and institutions that the government has funded has changed. These changes are set in place to better the system and to make healthcare more affordable and efficient, but that hasn’t really been the case in the last couple of years. As the people of the nation we were given a promise by our government that they would serve the people for the better. Looking at what is happening in our nation currently, and what it might be in a couple of years, that promise they made to serve us better has been shattered. Of course it’s not the first time our government has broken this promise, but hopefully something can be done about the corruption hitting our healthcare system.

Recently the progress of the healthcare system has decreased. This could be just an opinion but looking at what our current president wants to put in place it’s clear to see that these changes will only hurt the system. When Obama was president he put ObamaCare into place. This gave thousands of people the chance to afford everything they needed to live a healthy life, but that might all change because of the new president Donald Trump. Trump wants to change ObamaCare to TrumpCare and change a lot of the policies and fundings that ObamaCare promised. The changes are detrimental to people living under the poverty line and for senior citizens. For citizens living under the poverty line, Trump is going to block granting Medicaid to the states, which would permit rightwing states to restrict Medicaid coverage for the poor. This would leave so many people without the ability to seek help/treatment. For those who decide not to get health insurance because of the high costs, there is a 30 percent surcharge if there happens to be an emergency. These are people who can’t afford insurance that will now be getting charged more because of unpredicted medical emergencies. TrumpCare will also increase premiums for senior citizens which doesn’t even make any sense because getting/being older is inevitable. TrumpCare would be defunding Planned Parenthood making it harder and more expensive to obtain birth control and get an abortion. All of this wrapped into a big bow is TrumpCare and if passed the country will be in high debts because it all costs to much and no one has the money to afford it. A vicious cycle for good health, which again makes me question if the government is really holding up their promise on serving their people. If they were serving their people they won’t let this pass. A governor from Utah, Jason Chaffetz, said, “Americans have choices. And they’ve got to make a choice. And so maybe, rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love, and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care.” The lack of respect that this governor has is unethical. There are people in this country that don’t have iPhones or health insurance and the governor have a representative seat to change that for the people of the state they govern. Things need to change fast because their are consequences to all this.

Most people wouldn’t associate the healthcare system with the word corruption but if corruption is defined as using power for a personal gain then corruption goes hand in hand with the healthcare system. The healthcare system in America is designed for one thing, and you would think that one thing would be to save and better lives, but it’s actually making money. With an appetite for profit the system allows many people to feed off the funding and make money while hurting the patients it’s suppose to be helping. Pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, hospitals, insurance companies, and doctors are the ones that benefit by putting money in their pockets. This happens by doctors scheduling unneeded tests and surgeries, pharmacies giving less pills and more refills needed, and hospitals by admitting people in when some cases are unnecessary. All of these things are a reality and the patients are the one suffering. More bills and fees that have to be paid, draining the pockets of some that are struggling to even pay monthly bills. It’s unfair, immoral, and harming patients in the process. Patients are suffering higher rates of chronic illnesses correlated with lower life expectancies in this century because of the cost of living. The cost to stay alive and well is to much and that is unacceptable.

The reality of care is that people’s health are decreasing but more money keeps getting made. How does that make sense? Shouldn’t the health be increasing because more money is being spent? That’s how it should work, but in America we have different ways of things working. The quality of health for patients is assumpted to be placed in the hands of our doctors, but in reality it’s in the hands of the insurance companies and hospitals that the doctors work for. The bond of trust with doctors and patients is being broken and it’s because doctors have become puppets on strings to the people they work for; this ultimately is harming patients. Hospitals and insurers have a reward and punishment system for doctors. Specific metrics are set for amount of tests given and the treatments they practice. In a contract it’s called “pay for performance”. Physicians who meet the metrics for the hospital are rewarded with bonuses and higher ratings on insurer websites. Those who don’t abide by the rules get lower pay and lower ratings on insurer websites. Think about it, who wants to go to a doctor who has bad reviews? So it’s true that doctors are ordering unnecessary tests, adding on more refills, and scheduling more follow ups all to meet a certain quota. This increases risk and sometimes the risks outway the benefits of extra testing. Hospitals also have a “quota of admissions” for their emergency rooms. This causes more people to be hospitalized even when they might not need to be. This is like dangling money in front of doctors faces and telling them they can have it if they follow the rules. It takes out morals and individualism from health care completely.

From the distrust that people have accumulated from excessive tests and follow up appointments, the amount of people going to the doctors in America is lower than any other country with a healthcare system. Over the past year twenty five percent of American’s claim to not have seeked medical attention when sick because of the high costs. Twenty three percent skipped scheduled tests, treatments, and follow up appointments recommended by doctors. Another twenty three percent didn’t refill prescribed prescriptions. That is being compared to both Canada and the United Kingdom. Canada didn’t exceed five percent on any of those categories, and the United Kingdom didn’t exceed three percent for any of those categories. As a result to people not seeking treatment, there has been a significant spike in chronic illness in the United States over the past five years. More and more people are being diagnosed with life long illnesses that require lots of maintenance. Coordination of care is important with these type of illnesses. The problem is, these chronic illnesses aren’t getting treated properly because people can’t afford to get those treatments. As stated above, people are not going to the doctors, or their treatments/tests/follow ups, or refilling their medication. This is all due to the fact that no one can afford it. Comparing the amount of money an individual spends on health care in the United States to an individual in Canada is sickening. It’s over a four thousand dollar different for the same ending goal, to get better and be healthy. Numbers don’t lie, but politicians do. Not that this is a new fact, but it is shocking to see that the structure of our healthcare system is not built on the wellbeing of the people it’s there to serve, but on the profit that will be made after the bills are passed out. People are dying. Life expectancy has gone down and chronic illness has gone up. It’s time to pay attention to what is happening to the people.

The cold fact is that people are dying. Actual lives are being lost because they can not afford to pay for things like medication and doctor visits. Alec Raeshawn Smith, a twenty six year old man, was found dead in his apartment on June 27, 2017. He had died from trying to ration out his insulin after aging out of his parents health insurance. He couldn’t afford insulin and payed the price of his life instead, and he’s not the only one. Shane Patrick Boyle died March 18, 2017 after being fifty dollars short on a GoFundMe page for his insulin. Boyle couldn’t afford insulin, a drug that people with diabetes need to survive, and died from lack of it. The stories of people not being able to afford the luxury of live don’t stop with Smith and Boyle. It’s sicken to think that this is a system put in place to prevent things like this from happening, but because the government is money hungry they place money over lives. The real question here is where is the morality? Morality is how we determine what is right and what is wrong. At some point these people in government positions have to stop and ask themselves if what they are passing is moral, and I hope they all come to the conclusion that it is not. If they really did that though maybe this wouldn’t be an issue, but instead of basing decisions on the morals and ethics they base it off of the dollar signs. We live in a world where people are more concerned with the amount of money they can make over the well being of thousands of lives. To stress this one more time, people are dying. Lives are being robbed because people can’t afford basic needs to stay alive in this day of age.

In a recent article by Ian Johnston, he explains the choices that people have to face when rationing out their money. In today’s society it’s hard to live happy lifestyle when the money brought home from a long days of work is taken by endless bills and fees. There is mortgage/rent, car payment, gas, electric, water, food…the list goes on. When deciding where to put the money health doesn’t come high on the list for some people. Another medical tragedy stories involves a young man by the name of Conan Soranno who died sometime in early August of this year. He passed away because he couldn’t afford to go to the hospital after throwing up buckets of blood. Soranno made a Facebook post about his experience a couple days and minutes before his death. He posted that he was forced to sell his car for rent and that he had to cancel his health insurance policy in order to buy groceries. Soranno knew his health was declining and that he needed medical attention but didn’t seek help. In a Facebook post he mentions making the decision to be hospitalized or homeless because he couldn’t afford the price of health care and treatment. Minutes before his death, around three-o-clock in the morning, Soranno asked friends and family to be with him in his final hours. Haunting that someone was looking death in the eye because of his financial standing and knew it. He died that night and never received medical attention.

So what can be done to help get this nation back on track? It might seem like a far stretch to ask the government to change it’s ways, but there is no other way around this problem. The government has become money hungry and is metaphorically feeding on the lives of the people that are dying at their hands (or decisions that will only hinder the over wellness of the population). What needs to change is the attitude that the government has towards its people. Once again, the government is only put in place to serve and protect the people. It was designed to help those live better and come to an overall agreement on how to better the quality of life for the whole. The promise that was made was that we the people would be that whole. As the years went on, somewhere down the line or politics, that promise was broken and forgotten about. Instead of bettering the whole the government is only bettering the people within itself. That isn’t wholistic, but individualistic. It doesn’t serve the people, but a select portion of those who call the shots. The people need to be heard; they need to be listened to. In order to better the quality of life for the people the government needs to understand how to do that. What better why than to ask the people themselves? The thing is, we have been screaming at the top of our lungs for equality in a lot of topics involving our government, but when it comes to the overall health of the nation they seem to tune us out. That needs to change.

The list for changes goes on and on, from letting doctors practice ethically rather than trying to meet and quota, to making sure all people who need help can afford to do so. As a nation we have the power to come together and stand up for what we believe isn’t right. Ever since I was a little girl I always went back to the thought of that woman trying to tell the paramedics not to take her to the hospital. This woman was in a state of life or death and all she was concerned about was how she wouldn’t be able to afford the bills that come with her life being saved. I understand that money is important, but I would have never thought it would be so important that it determined life or death for some people. As time goes on the problem is getting worse. Protests, petitions, rallies, and simply raising awareness for the corruption hitting our healthcare system is the only chance we have to see a better tomorrow. For all those people about to reach retirement, all those couples being new lives into this world, and for those that suffer quietly under the poverty line, things need to change.

When looking at the government deception and corruption should be common words to associate with them now. After looking over all that has been done about the system that is placed to help people and to end illness is causing more deaths and losing the trust of it’s nation. Morality and ethics are being forgotten by the illusions of the dollar bill. People are dying at the expense of money. All these broken promises.  

 

Work Cited

Bandler, Aaron. “9 Biggest Problems With Trumpcare.” Daily Wire, The Daily Wire, 8 Mar.2017,http://www.dailywire.com/news/14226/9-biggest-problems-trumpcare-aaron-b

Brownlee, Shannon, and Vikas Saini. “Corrupt Health Care Practices Drive Up Costs And Fail Patients.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 26 May 2017, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/corrupt-health-care-practices-drive-up-costs-and-fail-patients_us_59286dd9e4b053f2d2ac51f0.

The New York Times, The New York Times, 18 Nov. 2014, .

Himmelstein, David U. and Steffie Woolhandler. “Trumpcare or Transformation.”
American Journal of Public Health, vol. 107, no. 5, May 2017, pp. 660-661. EBSCOhost, doi:10.2105/AJPH.2017.303729.

Hoffman, Daniel R. “How today’s corrupt health care system is about to get worse.” Philly.com, 5 Dec. 2016, .

Johnston, Ian. “Dying man who couldn’t afford to go to hospital after vomiting blood left moving final message on Facebook.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 28,Aug.2017, www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/conan-soranno-couldnt-affor

D-private-healthcare-los-angeles-photographer-vomited-blood-a7916191.html.

Partanen, Anu. “The Fake Freedom of American Health Care.” The New York Times The New York Times, 18 Mar. 2017,

 

Pieterse, Pieternella and Tom Lodge. “When Free Healthcare Is Not Free. Corruption

and Mistrust in Sierra Leone’s Primary Healthcare System Immediately Prior to

the Ebola Outbreak.” International Health (1876-3413), vol. 7, no. 6, Nov. 2015,

  1. 400-404. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1093/inthealth/ihv024.

 

Ross, Millar, et al. “It’s All about the Money? A Qualitative Study of Healthcare Worker

Motivation in Urban China.” International Journal for Equity in Health, vol. 16,

07 July 2017, pp. 1-9. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1186/S12939-017-0616-9.

 

“Ten Reasons Why American Health Care Is so Bad.” The American Prospect,

prospect.org/article/ten-reasons-why-american-health-care-so-bad

 

“This is how American health care kills people.” The Week – All you need to know about

everything that matters, 19 Jan. 2017, theweek.com/articles/666799/how-american-health-care-kills-people.

Work Cited

 

Bandler, Aaron. “9 Biggest Problems With Trumpcare.” Daily Wire, The Daily Wire, 8

 

Mar.2017,

 

http://www.dailywire.com/news/14226/9-biggest-problems-trumpcare-aaron-b

 

andler#.

 

 

 

Brownlee, Shannon, and Vikas Saini. “Corrupt Health Care Practices Drive Up Costs

 

And Fail Patients.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 26 May 2017,

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/corrupt-health-care-practices-drive-up-costs-and-fail-patients_us_59286dd9e4b053f2d2ac51f0.

 

 

 

Groopman, Pamela Hartzband And Jerome. “How Medical Care Is Being Corrupted.”

 

The New York Times, The New York Times, 18 Nov. 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/opinion/how-medical-care-is-being-corrupted.html.

 

 

 

Himmelstein, David U. and Steffie Woolhandler. “Trumpcare or Transformation.”

 

American Journal of Public Health, vol. 107, no. 5, May 2017, pp. 660-661. EBSCOhost, doi:10.2105/AJPH.2017.303729.

 

 

 

Hoffman, Daniel R. “How today’s corrupt health care system is about to get worse.”

 

Philly.com, 5 Dec. 2016, http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/healthcare/How-todays-corrupt-health-care-system-is-about-to-get-worse.html.

 

 

 

Johnston, Ian. “Dying man who couldn’t afford to go to hospital after vomiting blood left moving

 

final message on Facebook.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media,

 

28,Aug.2017, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/conan-soranno-couldnt-affor

 

D-private-healthcare-los-angeles-photographer-vomited-blood-a7916191.html.

 

 

 

Partanen, Anu. “The Fake Freedom of American Health Care.” The New York Times

 

The New York Times, 18 Mar. 2017, http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/opinion/the-fake-freedom-of-american-health-care.html

 

 

 

Pieterse, Pieternella and Tom Lodge. “When Free Healthcare Is Not Free. Corruption

 

and Mistrust in Sierra Leone’s Primary Healthcare System Immediately Prior to

 

the Ebola Outbreak.” International Health (1876-3413), vol. 7, no. 6, Nov. 2015,

 

400-404. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1093/inthealth/ihv024.

 

 

Ross, Millar, et al. “It’s All about the Money? A Qualitative Study of Healthcare Worker

 

Motivation in Urban China.” International Journal for Equity in Health, vol. 16,

 

07 July 2017, pp. 1-9. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1186/S12939-017-0616-9.

 

 

 

“Ten Reasons Why American Health Care Is so Bad.” The American Prospect,

 

prospect.org/article/ten-reasons-why-american-health-care-so-bad

 

 

 

“This is how American health care kills people.” The Week – All you need to know about

 

everything that matters, 19 Jan. 2017, theweek.com/articles/666799/how-american-health-care-kills-people.

Self Reflective Statement – Princess45

Core Value I. My work demonstrates that I used a variety of social and interactive practices that involve recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development.

Core value I is to “Understand that writing is a practice which involves a multi- stage, recursive, and social progress.” This Core Value means to me that writing takes time, it evolves multiple processes and recursive stages of exploration and development. This Core Value consists of Non linear composing activities and reading, inventing and drafting . We will experience writing as a collection of practices and processes that involve multiple, recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization and development. White Paper:  https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/11/05/white-paper-princess45/

Core Value II. My work demonstrates that I placed texts into conversation with one another to create meaning by synthesizing ideas from various discourse communities. 

Core Value II is to “Understand that close and critical reading/ analysis allows writers to understand how and why texts create a meaning”  This Core Value means to me that writing conveys meaning. Text builds upon and responds to other texts. Explore and develop ideas by closely analyzing texts. Texts are not limited. Students come to understand that writing, all writing, not just their own is a process that creates, shapes and conveys meaning and that texts represent conversations between self, other texts and the world. Meaning is generated intertextually and builds upon and responds to other texts. The meaning of writing is represented in different ways, different settings, discipline and discourse communities. Definition Argument: https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/10/29/definition-argument-princess45/

Core Value III. My work demonstrates that I rhetorically analyzed the purpose, audience, and contexts of my own writing and other texts and visual arguments.

Core Value III is to “Understand that writing is shaped by audience, purpose, and context.” This Core Value means that students will understand writing as a communicative act which involves the creation of a purposeful message for a perceived audience. We can read our own texts and rhetorically analyze to see how we create different things to reach out to other students and ourselves. Students also understand that audience expectations, such as textual conventions, vary according to situations and genres. Visual Rewrite: https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/10/08/visual-rewrite-princess45/

Core Value IV: My work demonstrates that I have met the expectations of academic writing by locating, evaluating, and incorporating illustrations and evidence to support my own ideas and interpretations.

Core Value IV is to “Understand the role of information literacy in the practice of writing.” This Core Value means contextualizing your own writing and provide sources and evidence beyond their own personal experiences. Creating ideas of your own and developing skills to locate, evaluate and select appropriate information. Students learn the importance of illustrations and evidence to support their own ideas and interpretations. We will develop our information literacy skills in a digital environment and be able to locate and incorporate appropriate information to create rhetorically savvy writing. Purposeful Summaries: https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/09/24/purposeful-summaries-princess45/

Core Value V. My work demonstrates that I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citation. 

Core Value V is to “Understand the ethical dimensions of writing.” This Core Value means understanding writing through a person connection, relate to self. How we affect our writing, proper use of context, using correct citation, acknowledging information and accuracy. Students develop an understanding of their accountability to the intellectual community as a whole, and to the university in particular, which includes the practices associated with academic integrity. This Core Value helped me in all my writings because it taught me about academic integrity which is important in everything you do and to be honest about your writings and where they are coming from. Definition Argument: https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/10/29/definition-argument-princess45/

Rebuttal Rewrite – collegegirl

The author of Young Black Men and the Criminal Justice System: A
Growing National Problem Marc Mauer, indicated in his journal post that “almost 23% of black males between the ages of 20-29 end up in prison, jail, on probation or parole on any given day.” What black communities have struggled with in the recent years has been the effect of injustice actions caused by law enforcement officials. Biased and unfair treatments from law enforcers are usually towards black males rather than black females. When watching the news and when searching around on the different social media sites, we find that police brutality victims are males and not females. Some may believe that in order to help prevent future police brutality event from happening, we have to start with our young men who suffer in lower class communities.

Motivating young black men to stay out of drugs, violence, and other criminal acts should be the first step when it comes to solving the issues within Black America today. Young black men who are striving for a better future should begin their focus on education and post secondary education. Also written in Mauer’s article, he makes a claim that “The number of young Black men under the control of the
criminal justice system — 609,690 — is greater than the total number of Black men of all ages enrolled in college — 436,000.” He compares this statistic to the number of White males in higher education which is 4,600,000. This lies a huge problem. People may feel the need to focus their attention more on young black males over young black females because of all the social issues young black males are faced with daily.

Although the My Brother’s Keeper is a positive enforcement for young black men and boys around different communities and part of the world, people, men and females, have argued as to why the movement is exclusively for young boys and why not for young black females as well. Months after starting the MBK movement, over 1,000 women of color wrote letters to the President addressing the issue. The letters were to urge the President to include the sisters as well as the brothers in positive movements such as MBK. One women named Legertha Butler-Walton included in her letter to the former President that she didn’t march with Martin Luther King to get the “whites only” signs taken down, only to then have the nations first black President put up signs that say “men only.” To justify the exclusion of females, the White House states that “boys of color are too often born into poverty and live with a single parent.” But, in fact, girls too are born into poverty and are raised by single parents, so the White House really can’t  use that reason to justify the exclusiveness to males.

There are obvious facts that show how police brutality effects more men then women. The MBK movement that Obama has exclusively for males has again caused women to be infuriated because they, too, need guidance and reassurance from leaders. In fact, studies have shown that African American males make more money than an average African American female. Research clearly shows these numbers and how women need help getting in the workforce just as much as males do. Another interesting statistic is that African American males are less likely to raise children on poverty-level wages then African American females. It is understandable that young black males need influencers and leaders because of what is going on around the world today such as police brutality. Young black males have been the highest target for police brutality. But, at the same time, if we take a look at the increasing rates of teenage pregnancies which causes young females to drop out of school, and most of the time, not continue their education after their child is born, our women need as much attentions as the males are getting.

Although recent studies show that young girl hog the academic achievements such as honor roll and principles list, they too, need support and guidance from leaders to stay on that track. Communities need not only male influences but female too! Black Female influences such as Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Gabrielle Union should all take on the same helping challenge that Barack Obama did with young black males, and use it to help the young sisters out as well.

 

Mauer, Marc. “Young Black Men and the Criminal Justice System: A Growing National Problem.” ERIC – Education Resources Information Center, 31 Jan. 1990, eric.ed.gov/?id=ED336442.

 

Causal Rewrite – collegegirl

Police brutality has caused many males of color to be afraid of law enforcers. The murders of innocent black males such as Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Phillip White and many others, caused movements such as Black Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, Barack Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper movement and many other movements and groups such as these. Studies and recent actions by police officers have caused young black males to feel under engaged and more likely to be victims of police brutality over other races. Young black males to feel terrified, traumatized and nervous that they may be the next victim of police brutality during any given day.

Four years ago, the very popular movement of Black Lives Matter began their organization whose intentions are to build local power within communities and spread the world that Black Lives Matter. Their ultimate goal is to have a world where black lives are no longer the target for police officers. The Black Lives Matter movement promotes voice, they want to be heard. The organizations go around and march for their rights, fighting to get equalization and justice for those who they have lost from the acts of police brutality. On the other side of the Black Lives Matter movement, there is an All Lives Matter Movement. The All Lives Matter activists believe that we shouldn’t highlight that only black lives matter in our world because technically all lives matter. Here’s a controversial topic. In fact, all lives do matter, but the black community has been targeted from the beginning of time going back to slavery and now, being targeted again by the justice system who is supposed to protect its people not harm innocent black males. The list goes on of how many protest and movements there are regarding the police brutality issues we face today. We always see movements on social media and on the news about protest for police brutality, but the real questions is, what are we doing for our youth to ensure them that they are the ones who ca make a change in our justice system today.

Unlike the Black Lives Matter movement which only promotes their organization by marches and protest, Barack Obama created a movement to help the young men of color in the black communities. The My Brother’s Keeper movement was created after the life of an innocent young black male Trayvon Martin was taken and who’s murderer was found not guilty after trial. Obama’s goal for this movement is to help young black men and boys stay on track and providing them with the support and guidance that is necessary to help them build a better future for themselves.

Like every movement, Obama has set six different milestones that he wants all of the participants to accomplish while in the program. Getting a healthy start and and entering school is his very first milestone. Every child should enter school at the appropriate age and not only be physically ready but also emotionally ready to take on the ability to learn in a classroom setting. At the age of 8, reading to comprehend and to understand is extremely important, so Obama’s wants participants to read at grade level by third grade. Graduating from High School and beginning college is the start and foundation of building a career for yourself. Obama believes that all youth should receive quality education in high school that will advance and move them to post secondary education. Of course, entering into college is the easy part, finishing is the hard part. Another one of Obama’s milestone is for Americans to be able to go to post secondary education and graduate which leads them into their careers. Successfully entering the workforce is another milestone. Having a job allows people to provide support for their families. The sixth and final milestone that Obama has in tact for his movement is that kids should be kept on track and given second chances.

With these milestones set in stone for the My Brother’s Keeper movement, it has statistically improved neighborhoods around the country. Since the movement began in 2014, the MBK movement has decreased Compton’s homicide rate by 64%, ignite employment for 10,000 young men in Philadelphia, and empowered 12,000 incarcerated men to educate themselves on the collegiate level and enlist in workforce training. In an article about a community by Yohannes Abraham, the author discusses how a financial service firm in Long Beach California partnered with a mentoring program which students go to their office, fill out applications and do mock interviews with managers. To keep the students motivated, the firm rewards them prizes such as laptops when they reach their GPA goals.

If Obama took this initiative before the death of Trayvon Martin, Martin could still be living today. Obama should have created the movement before police brutality began. Young black males of small communities have been struggling before police brutality even begun. Between gangs, violence between one another, and poverty, young black males have been struggling for many years. Consistent programs that provided young men of color with the correct supervision to point the young men in a positive direction, could have gave the troubled youth the experience and guidance they needed to have before the police brutality rate increased and got to a point that is is today.

When communities come together to help young men and their futures, future’s of young black males will become more positive rather than negative. Providing young black men with guidance and support for their futures through the My Brother’s Keeper program and other programs like it, young males focus will be more on their own future rather than the negatives that are happening around them in their future.

 

Works Cited

Davis, Nicholas Quah Laura E. “Here’s A Timeline Of Unarmed Black People Killed By Police Over Past Year.” BuzzFeed, http://www.buzzfeed.com/nicholasquah/heres-a-timeline-of-unarmed-black-men-killed-by-police-over?utm_term=.kyypRAbJJ#.bbZlp4N33.

“My Brother’s Keeper.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/node/279811.

“Building on What Works With My Brother’s Keeper.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/04/17/building-what-works-my-brother-s-keeper.

Parham, Jason. “My Brother’s Keeper Pushes On As Reality For Black Men Remains In Peril.” The FADER, The FADER, 8 Nov. 2017, http://www.thefader.com/2016/07/08/my-brothers-keeper-celebrates-benchmarks.

 

5b. Definition Rewrite- Yoshi

I can’t breathe. Those were Eric Garner’s last words before he was killed by police officers. Garner was approached by officers, as they accused him of selling a loose cigarette. Garner questioned why he was being arrested, the officers did not answer. Once Garner began to resisted arrest, claiming he did nothing wrong, Officer Pantaleo placed Garner in a chokehold, and officers then began to help wrestle Garner down to the ground, even though he was no longer resisting. Garner was held with his face down against the cement. Garner was not perceived as a threat to the officers, he had no weapons on him, and he wasn’t yelling or screaming. Garner was surrounded by other police officers, and also innocent pedestrians that were recording the officers abuse. Garner yelled, “I can’t breathe” to the officer holding him down; the officer did not stop. Eventually, Garner runs out of breath, and was later approached by street medics. Garner was pronounced dead from compression to the neck, from Officer Pantaleo’s chokehold, and compression of chest, from being restrained against the ground.

More recently, police officers have been over reacting to a black man’s behavior as if their behavior were life threatening to the police officer.
Some police officers react irrationally to a perceived threat. A threat is a declaration of an intention to inflict punishment, injury, etc. Garner was not a threat to police officers. He simply questioned why he was being arrested, and with no answer from the officer, he resisted arrest until the officer had a reason. The officers then overreacted to his decision to ask why he was being arrested, and choked him to death. There could have been many ways to avoid killing Garner. He was only asking why he was being arrested, with a simple explanation, he could have still been alive today.

In Missouri, Michael Brown was gunned down because he was under suspicion of stealing a cigarillo. He had no weapons on him, but he was perceived as a threat to the officer. The officer confronted Brown though his car, Brown proceeded to walk away. The officer gets out of his car, and shoots Brown six times, twice hitting Brown in the head. Police are trained to miss their target purposely, just to scare the victim and have them surrender. In this case, the officer purposely shot him in the head, intending to kill him.

Similarly enough, Tamir Rice, a twelve year old boy was shot and killed at a playground, after playing with a toy gun. Someone called 911 telling the operator, a little boy was playing with a gun, they specified that it had an orange tag on it. The orange tags shows that the gun is a toy gun. The officer shows up to the park, and within two seconds the officer shoots Tamir Rice, leaving him dead at the park. The officers could have simply approached Rice, and calmly asked him to put down his gun. The officers posed Rice as a threat, but he was no more of a threat than the others boys who were unarmed. In all of these incidents these boys should have been simply arrested or taken to the station, but instead they were all shot and killed.

Police perceptions on threats are directed towards black people. Police usually kill more black people than anyone else, because they claim to feel more threatened by them. Josh Correll, a psychology professor from the University of Colorado, ran test with a video game. His findings showed police officers avoid shooting unarmed targets of all races, but as soon as they were allowed to shoot, they would shoot more quickly against blacks suspects over white ones. This shows that officers do display some racial bias in shooting suspects. Also, in another study by Correll, research found that the public and police are less likely to view black people as innocent. In the real world, this can lead officers to shoot black people more often than white people. According to Correll’s study, if a cop is inclined to shoot at a black suspect more quickly this can lead to fault such as, shooting a innocent suspect. Only different sorts of training can diminish this bias, that cops have acquired.

Tragedy sparked across the nation after Eric Garner’s death. His final words, “I can’t breathe” became a national protest movement. The death of Garner is what sparked the questions of correlation between race and killing from law enforcement. He died in July, in November Officer Pantaleo appeared before the grand jury at court. Officer Pantaleo claimed he didn’t intended to choke Eric Garner, even though Garner repeatedly stated he could not breathe. The jury then declared there was not enough evidence to further continue an investigation, and Officer Pantaleo was sent free, case was dismissed. Not only did this happen to Eric Garner, but it also happened to Michael Brown. Brown was shot down due to a suspicion of stealing a cigarillo. Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Brown, was dismissed with no charges. These cases were two weeks apart, and protest across the United States broke out.

Victims of the excess abuse and their families deserve an approach towards a resolution to this problem. The justice system is dishonest towards citizens and indefensibly supports law enforcement every time. It is difficult to play the victim when going against someone in law enforcement. A three year $263 millions package for police officers’ use of body cameras and an improvement of law enforcement changes was announced, in order to build public trust and to examine police violence with more evidence. This is a great step to coming to a resolution, but unfortunately it doesn’t help much. Better police training to overcome racial bias would be the best resolution for the families and victims.

Humans have stereotypes for every different race. One of the most common is linking blacks to crime and aggression, and to get rid of this stereotype a lot of time and training would be required. The training would consist of shooting stimulations, such as body language, cues, and what it seems like someone is holding in their possession. This would help officers focus more on indications opposed to race. This type of training is not required by law, but it is becoming more common with racial profiling growing in the justice system. Also, another effective training that is becoming more popular is called deescalating. This requires officers to try to calm down the victim and reduce the intensity of the situation, before they result to their guns. There is not a single quick fix to this situation. But with a systematic approach and time the correlation between law enforcement and racial bias will begin to diminish.

Works Cited
Al Baker, J. David Goodman And Benjamin Mueller. “Beyond the Chokehold: The Path to Eric Garner’s Death.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 13 June 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/nyregion/eric-garner-police-chokehold-staten-island.html.

Dianis, Judith Browne. “What Really Killed Eric Garner Was More than Just a Chokehold.”MSNBC, NBCUniversal News Group, 5 Aug. 2014, http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/what-killed-eric-garner.

nydailynews. “Eric Garner Video – Unedited Version.” YouTube, YouTube, 12 July 2015, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpGxagKOkv8.

Post, The Washington. “492 Died in Police Shootings This Year.” The Denver Post, The Denver Post, 2 July 2017, http://www.denverpost.com/2017/07/01/fatal-police-shootings-2017/.

Definition Rewrite – collegegirl

The general definition of a community can be defined as a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristics in common. For Barack Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” movement which started back in February of 2014, he is trying just that, to bring communities together. After the death of an innocent young black man names Trayvon Martin, Obama created the MBK movement. The movement was created to help and motivate young men of color stay on track. The community leaders of the MBK movement stride to provide the support and guidance that the young men of color need in order for them to think more broadly about their futures. In order for the My Bother’s Keeper movement to be successful, Obama focuses on what characteristics make up a community. In a recent article I read, it stated that in order for a community to be successful in coming together it needs to have five roles which help them work together, in order to be successful.

The My Bother’s Keeper Community Challenge urges communities bring together leaders that work together to accomplish the main goals of the movement. Every community needs a host. The host is in charge entertaining the guests. In the case of the MBK movement, the host will be entitled to making sure that all of the young males are satisfied in what the movement is doing for them. The role of the host is to not only make sure everyone is satisfied but also in charge of making the rules and enforcing them. The article states that although being the host can be fun, it also involves the role of kicking people out if they are not following the rules that are being enforces. In this case though, because MBK is such a powerful movement to help enhance young black males lives, I doubt the host will ever “kick someone out” if they don’t abide by the rules they have in tact.

The next big role that plays in the community is the facility. The article defines the facilitator being the one who always does good. Another important role of the facilitator is to make sure people within the group, are conversing with one another and meeting new people. In this case, with the My Brother’s Keeper movement, it is extremely important for the facilitator to make sure that the young men are talking and engaging with one another. When troubled youth come together for the same purpose and have the same goals, it allows them to feel like they’re a team and can do anything. Since groups of young men are all in the same community, that gives them a chance to talk about each other’s struggles and they may have something in common with one another. One may have went through something previously that one is going through now, and together, they can get through what actually is causing them to feel like they are troubles and need guidance to help them with their future.

In every group there’s always the “popular one.” Recently, one of the well known player’s in the NBA became one of the leaders for the MBK movement. Kevin Durant, announced that he was partnering with the movement to help decrease the absenteeism in school. The article defines the “popular one” as the one who brings a bunch of people with them.     Because Durant is such a superstar and someone who kids look up to and want to be, is extremely helpful for the movement because it will show kids that someone who is famous and the “popular one” actually cares and is providing them with the support to make them better at such a young age. When a movement or community has someone that is famous involved, it’s going to bring in an audience and participants.

Now, on the other hand of the popular one, there’s always an instigator who’s also very important in the community. Unlike being quiet, the instigators job is to basically stir up the pot. The instigator causes controversy. In order for the community to be successful with the MBK movement, there must be an instigator who is ready to point out the problems that the individuals of the group have and make them aware of it. Helping the young men began to understand their problems will help them become obviously aware of what the issue is and come to a conclusion on how to fix the issues. The instigator of the community is the most important role. They are really there to make people come to realization of who they really are, what their problems are and ho they can fix those problems to have a better future.

The fifth important role in order to have a successful community is the voyeur. The voyeur is the one who helps everyone and lends a hand when necessary. This role in the community is very important for obvious reasons. Everyone is there to seek help and guidance from someone in order to improve their future. Having someone to count on can play an important role to the young men because they will always know that they have someone to go to when they are in need of a favor or if something goes wrong, they know there will always be someone there to lend a hand.

Having a variety of leaders play these roles, can be extremely helpful when it comes to helping and bringing the community together for the MBK Movement. The community certainly plays an important factor and role in itself when trying to accept the MBK Challenge. Before accepting the challenge, the communities should be aware that they need to fulfill every role to ensure that the young men are being provided with the correct guidance whether it be the ugly truth or positive enforcements.

 

Works Cited

“The 5 Types of Roles You Need in Your Community.” Salesforce Blog, http://www.salesforce.com/blog/2013/12/the-5-types-of-roles-you-need-in-your-community.html.

JustinTinsley. “Mr. Reliable: Kevin Durant Is My Brother’s Keeper’s Secret Weapon.” The Undefeated, 6 July 2016, theundefeated.com/videos/mr-reliable-kevin-durant-is-my-brothers-keepers-secret-weapon/.

 

 

Reflective Statement- Killroy513

Core Value I. My work demonstrates that I used a variety of social and interactive practices that involve recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development.

Finding supporting information to back up my essays arguments was a challenge. I had to figure out what to use and when it was appropriate to use it. For my research paper I went to my local library and found information regarding the prohibition. I also used a good amount of online sources because it was easier to find specific information. All are properly cited in my paper.

Core Value II. My work demonstrates that I placed texts into conversation with one another to create meaning by synthesizing ideas from various discourse communities. 

All my works have demonstrated a conversation of texts to form a strong argument and engaged the reader. Being able to explain and “slice” together sentences to form a well made paragraph in my essays takes away the “fluff” and gives the reader more to read about the specific topic. In the end my writings progressed and became well rounded incorporating a counter-intuitive like structure hitting all points and arguments.

Core Value III. My work demonstrates that I rhetorically analyzed the purpose, audience, and contexts of my own writing and other texts and visual arguments.

All the works I submitted this semester were written with the intent to make a legitimate argument or understanding of a topic selected. One of my favorite works I had the chance to write was the visual re-write. With this work I was able to describe what I saw in my own words second by second in the video I chose. At the time I did not fully understand the assignment, but with very good feed back I was able to edit my post and submit a very good representation of what I was able to write. The descriptions I wrote made the video easier to understand and displayed how one goes from another.

Core Value IV: My work demonstrates that I have met the expectations of academic writing by locating, evaluating, and incorporating illustrations and evidence to support my own ideas and interpretations.

With all the essays I have wrote, I try to keep them easy to understand and get my point across so that the reader can relate. My works are backed with strong supporting evidence to insure validity of my points. With my white paper I made sure to have specific supporting evidence to back up my claims.

Core Value V. My work demonstrates that I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citation. 

The work cited is one of the most important parts to an essay. It shows where you got your information from. Since grammar school, I have always cited my sources and used the website citation machine to do so. Being able to use this website makes it easy to cite the sources used to back up my arguments. All my works that I submitted were written respectfully and properly cited.

Self Reflective Statement- LifeisSublime

Core Value I. My work demonstrates that I used a variety of social and interactive practices that involve recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development.

Social and interactive practices are important in the writing process, and I didn’t realize that until this course. The way that the class is set up, in a blog, makes interacting with people easy. It allows others to see your work and give feedback, same as myself reading and commenting on my classmates work.  Having the class set up as a blog really helped to be to understand and leave what this core value was and the importance behind it. Throughout all the assignments, I think the one where social interaction helped me the most was the Critical Reading assignment. That assignment was different for each student since we all had to take a section of an article. See what my classmates had posted helped me fully understand my own section because it was able to read their summaries on their section (which some were before mine). I have reached this goal.

Core Value II. My work demonstrates that I placed texts into conversation with one another to create meaning by synthesizing ideas from various discourse communities. 

To fully understand the point being made in a writing assignment, it’s important to create meaning through other texts. This allows the reader to make up their own mind on certain arguments and gives the writer the advantage of using those texts to help support their claims. At first this was a hard thing for me to get down. Adding other writing in your own writing isn’t always easy, but it sure does help when making points/arguments. The assignment that I feel as though I fully understood the meaning of this core value was with the rebuttal assignment. The rebuttal assignment pushed me to show other opinions in order to help support my own. I used other articles to support my argument and successfully got my point across.

Core Value III. My work demonstrates that I rhetorically analyzed the purpose, audience, and contexts of my own writing and other texts and visual arguments.

Before starting a writing assignment it is very important to analyze the purpose that one might be writing this topic for.  The purpose of the writing assignment is very important because it causes the writer to make a decision on how to best go about this writing piece while taking into consideration the audience and the content of the argument. For me personally, before I write anything I like to make an outline. An outline is my own way of analyzing everything before I start the writing process. It allows me to think of my audience and decide which best way to present my argument. I think the assignment that best demonstrates this is the research paper because it was a lot of thoughts coming together for one writing piece.

Core Value IV: My work demonstrates that I have met the expectations of academic writing by locating, evaluating, and incorporating illustrations and evidence to support my own ideas and interpretations.

As a writer you want your work to demonstrate a certain level of professionalism while also getting the points you want to come across to the audience. This can be done efficiently by adding in evidence to support your claims, and also incorporate some of your own personal ideas. In this class I feel I have successfully accomplished those feats. The assignment that best supports that is the causal argument I have written along with my research argument. In that assignment I used other sources to back up my arguments on my own personal opinions. The sources needed to be connected to the point I was making, but once they were my argument was a lot more stronger.

Core Value V. My work demonstrates that I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citation. 

Throughout my time as a writer I have also been taught the importance of ethical responsibility when it comes to citations and giving credit where it is due. At first, I struggled with this. I thought that unless you quote that person word for word you didn’t have to cite them or the source. I learned that it is not the content of the material that needs to be cited, but the idea. If the idea isn’t yours, you must give credit to where and who you got it from. Throughout this semester I have worked harder on getting into s habit of doing that. The research paper is a very good assignment to reference because it has many sources used to help support my ideas.

Reflective – collegegirl

Core Value I. My work demonstrates that I used a variety of social and interactive practices that involve recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development.

Throughout the semester in Composition 2, my professor has taught me to think more into depth of subject matters and to not just see it how it is and believe that there is nothing behind a simple concept. For instance, the Stone Money assignment. When I walked into class on the first day, Professor Hodges lecture was about these Yap and how they believe in stone money, like actually stone. Yes, I was in shock too! The lecture and the assignment made me discovery that people around the world have various ways of what they consider to be money and also how they consider its value. By reading and listening to researchers and broadcasters discuss this topic of Stone Money, I was able to explore the ways that a different culture valued money.

https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/09/09/stone-money-11collegegirl/

Core Value II. My work demonstrates that I placed texts into conversation with one another to create meaning by synthesizing ideas from various discourse communities. 

During one lecture this semester, Professor Hodges talked about how it is better to say and discuss your argument out loud and consult with others until the argument either makes sense or that you actually have something to write about. That’s exactly what I did. My first topic of my research paper was Police Brutality. After a conversation with my professor, we came to realize that the topic was too broad and needed to be narrowed down. So, after some research, I found a movement names My Brother’s Keeper, that was founded by Barack Obama. After a few discussions with friends and family and researching, there were a few rebuttals for my research paper. Talking to my professor and others helped me with not only narrowing down my topic, but actually coming up with a rebuttal argument after realizing the different point of views that others had regarding the MBK Movement.

https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/11/19/rebuttal-college-girl/

Core Value III. My work demonstrates that I rhetorically analyzed the purpose, audience, and contexts of my own writing and other texts and visual arguments.

In all honestly, out of all of the assignment this semester, my favorite assignment, by far, was the visual rhetoric assignment. For this assignment, we really had to use our imagination to discover visuals and meaning through videos that were postings for advertisements all around the world. The video that I chose was a 30-second advertisement on hunger prevention for children. The assignment allowed me to really observe the video and the visuals that the creator came up with in order to persuade the audience. The assignment was to write out everything we saw in bits and pieces of the video. When doing the assignment, I found myself writing on average about 130 words during 2 seconds of the video. When it came down to it, writing and describing the visuals that I saw allowed me to come up with the message that the author was trying to persuade.

https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/09/17/visual-rhetoric-11collegegirl/

Core Value IV: My work demonstrates that I have met the expectations of academic writing by locating, evaluating, and incorporating illustrations and evidence to support my own ideas and interpretations.

For my research paper, I was having an extremely difficult time finding sources that were relevant to my topic. After writing my Definition argument and asking for Feedback from my Professor, he helped me with tons of sources I needed exactly for my research paper. After reading all of the sources, it allowed me to come up with a stronger argument regarding the MBK movement. While reading the articles, I was having trouble figuring out which rebuttal argument I wanted to use. After a quick conversation with my Professor, he told me that I can absolutely include more than one rebuttal in my final draft. Including these sources into my research paper will definitely make my argument more persuasive especially with having more than one rebuttal argument.

https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/10/30/definition-argument-collegegirl/

Core Value V. My work demonstrates that I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citation. 

While writing, sometimes I believe it can be difficult to use sources and putting them into your own words. In the Stone Money Rewrite assignment, I feel as though I used proper citations. Using proper citations is extremely important when it comes to writing essays and papers especially in college. What would be the point to copy someone else’s work? There’s no fun in that. Throughout my research paper, I have also used proper sources and citations that make the work mine with the proper citations.

https://rowancounterintuitive.com/2017/09/09/stone-money-11collegegirl/

Self-Reflective Statement – rainbow987

Core Value I. My work demonstrates that I used a variety of social and interactive practices that involve recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development.

Composition II was the first writing course that I took as a college student, as I received credit for Composition I from advanced placement testing. Therefore, I was new to the concept of spending significant time on a piece of writing by revising and editing. I enjoyed being able to communicate with Professor Hodges over the blog whenever I needed feedback. This tool allowed me to receive invaluable information remotely, which made revisions much easier for me. I took advantage of this opportunity in the visual rhetoric assignment. I was unhappy with the result of my submission, so Professor Hodges provided ample feedback and suggestions to improve my work. I then spent the time revising and creating a better draft of the assignment.

Core Value II. My work demonstrates that I placed texts into conversation with one another to create meaning by synthesizing ideas from various discourse communities.

Before taking this class, the only resources that I felt comfortable using for an assignment were documents and articles. I did not recognize that there are many other sources of information available, such as podcasts and visuals. When we were assigned the Stone Money assignment, Professor Hodges provided us with a list of possible useful sources. I used many of them, even though I was unsure how to use them initially. For example, there was a significantly long podcast linked to the list of sources that talked about the topic. I was unsure how to incorporate information from such a long conversation into my piece. However, after listening to the whole podcast and writing down the key points that I took from it, I felt much more knowledgeable about my topic, and therefore much more prepared to write about it.

Core Value III. My work demonstrates that I rhetorically analyzed the purpose, audience, and contexts of my own writing and other texts and visual arguments.

In order to better understand my topic, I used rhetoric language frequently. By using this technique, I was able to narrow my claim and show in common language what I was trying to express. In my causal argument, I created characters and story line to display the thoughts that I was trying to explain. Their actions were helpful in showing the cause and effect side of my argument in a sense that every person would understand. By rhetorically analyzing my argument, I proved that I understand my information completely and would be able to defend it in a real-life situation.

Core Value IV: My work demonstrates that I have met the expectations of academic writing by locating, evaluating, and incorporating illustrations and evidence to support my own ideas and interpretations.

It is important when writing a research paper to give proper credit to the sources used. It is also important to explain to the reader how the sources were used and how they proved valuable. Before taking this course, I always made sure to include a bibliography. However, I rarely was asked to provide an annotated version detailing this additional information. However, I found it helpful in organizing my writing. In addition, the reader will be able to validate my claims easily through my explanations of how I used the sources. My annotated bibliography provides clear and concise descriptions of my sources and how I found them valuable to my argument.

Core Value V. My work demonstrates that I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citation.

When writing a research paper, it is important to only use sources appropriately and fairly. Credit must be given to the authors and reasoning must be provided as to how it was useful to the argument. I was able to organize my sources in the Proposal +5 assignment, where I detailed how I was going to use each source responsibly. This practice helped me to fulfill my ethical responsibility. Although my thesis changed slightly since the production of this assignment, it still demonstrates the thought behind each source that I used. Therefore, I find it effective in showing that I properly represented the complex ideas discussed by other authors with appropriate citation.