Category: Portfolio FA17

Research Position Paper

On August 26, 2016, the announcer at Levi’s Stadium in San Francisco, California came over the loudspeaker, as before every game, and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, please rise and remove your hats for the singing of our national anthem.” At that moment, San Francisco 49ers quarterback, Colin Kaepernick dropped down to one knee and shocked the entire nation. From high school sporting events to the Olympic games, and ballparks around the country, “The Star-Spangled Banner” is a tradition Americans adopted at the commencement of great sporting events that serves as the pride of our great nation. What began as a simple gesture of patriotism grew into one of the greatest traditions at America’s beloved sporting venues. To some Americans, the rendition of the national anthem brings a tear to the eye and a chill to the spine. But, for others, “The Star-Spangled Banner” represents the hypocrisy of a nation divided on the idea all not Americans have equal rights in “the land of the free”. (Key)

After the NFL football game on the August 26, 2016, Colin Kaepernick released a statement,

“I am not going to stand up and show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football, and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder”.

Many Americans may not agree with Kaepernick’s statements, but they still hold some truth. In some parts of the United States, police brutality is still a serious problem, especially with the minorities such as black Americans. Police officers continue to outrage a nation with multiple incidences of unnecessary extreme acts of violence towards individuals of color.

This deep-seeded feud between black Americans and law enforcement roots itself in the race riots during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. The Civil Right movement in the 1960s caused America to ponder the question, “Are all Americans treated equally?” Police brutality ravaged the lives of black Americans across the nation which cause race riots in major US cities and on college campuses.  While some Americans resorted to violence, others peacefully attempted to display their distaste for the unequal rights with sit ins. Unfortunately, public demonstrations of racial inequalities resulted in violence and police brutality regardless of how they began (Anderson). As a nation, the United Stated made great strides to protect the rights of all Americans; however, many black Americans feel that police brutality is still thriving in our great nation similar to the race riots of the sixties.

Police brutality during the civil rights movement resulted in violent and public actions toward black Americans by public servants paid to uphold the law. While police officers vowed to serve and protect society, many Americans questioned who exactly the police protected and felt black Americans remained vulnerable in a nation progressing toward equality. Police continued to harass black Americans even while they participated in peaceful protests. On February 1, 1960, the Greensboro 4 staged their first “sit in” at the Woolworth’s, because they were permitted to buy merchandise at the store; however, they were not allowed to simply sit and buy a cup of coffee at the lunch counter. Their first meeting ended with a prayer, but after their peaceful protest grew, it turned into violent acts of police brutality toward the black citizens.  (Anderson).

Some cases of violence cause extreme outrage and rioting, like the case of Philando Castile, a black American who was pulled over for a faulty headlight. When the police officer pulled Castile over, Castile explained to the office that he had a firearm in his car and was also licensed to carry. The officer screams “Do not reach for it! Do not reach for it!” The dash camera from the police cruiser shows the officer firing shot into the driver side window of Castile’s vehicle. While the officer shot and killed Castile, he was acquitted of all charges. Castile’s girlfriend, an eye witness to the violent and senseless murder, recorded and broadcasted the incident live on Facebook for the world to see.

Kaepernick’s protest gained major attention, and was the topic of all major sports, and news networks across America. Since then, the protests grew in popularity among NFL players while spreading to the collegiate and high school levels. But, has Kaepernick’s  meaning of the protest been lost along the way? NFL players, like Kaepernick state that they kneel in protest of  police brutality, which is fine if that is their sole purpose. When you see so many players in the NFL just following along in others footsteps and kneeling, it begs the question of do they really know what or why they are protesting? Even future Hall of Fame coach Tony Dungy stated in an interview “But just don’t do it (kneel) because other people are doing it. Don’t just do it because you think it’s going to make a statement.”

If Kaepernick was really trying to make a statement about police brutality, though possibly effective, this was the wrong time to do it. Like I previously stated, the National Anthem made its first appearance at the sixth game of the World Series in 1918 to honor all of the service men who fought overseas in the Great War, and that had made the ultimate sacrifice for the country they love so dearly. Military supporters, and military families across America understand the origin of the Anthem, and that is why a many Americans were so outraged.

Lee Greenwood’s song, “Proud to be an American,” is a great example that shows the love most have for this great country.  In the third stanza of his song, Greenwood states “, and I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free, and I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.”  His is statement is truly what being an American is all about. As an American, I love this great nation, because it is the land of opportunity. Not everyone may always agree with everything that is done, such as police brutality, but that does not mean that I do not love and respect the nation that I call my home, and it certainly does not mean that  Americans should take a knee for the things that we do not stand for.

When we have arguments like this one, which clearly divide a nation, they bring up the point of right and wrong, ethical versus unethical, or cause and effect.  Newton’s third law states “for every action, there is a equal and opposite reaction.” Every action or reaction has a consequence and those consequences are deemed right or wrong by everybody around us. Whether those are family members, strangers passing by, or just acquaintances, we are always under a microscope. Under an even higher powered microscope are famous people, like Colin Kaepernick. We are all raised differently with a different set core values; however, individuals have his or her own opinion about everything/ For example, Kaepernick’s decision to take a knee for the National Anthem. Right or wrong depends on one’s opinion, what core values he or she was raised with, and which side of the debate one chooses. Various people will have different opinions on the subject. As such, when debating the issue, answers from one side of the argument are thoughts that one may never contemplate and hold the true for each counterargument. It seems counterintuitive that Kaepernick’s cause was just an effect of the problem of police brutality in America. The simple truth is, Kaepernick’s action was a single cause, that resonates major effects across America.

Outrage in mainstream America appears to be Kaepernick’s largest contribution to his argument. For generations, the playing of the national anthem has been a sacred ritual before many sporting events around the country. This anthem is not only to honor the country and the American flag, but a time to reflect and honor the service men and women that fight for freedoms at a time when Americans feel as much loss from war as World war II. Military families, both past and present, are insulted by Kaepernick’s kneeling. Even the newly elected President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, issued a statement via twitter saying, “Very important that NFL players STAND tomorrow, and always, for the playing our National Anthem. Respect our Flag and our country!”.  The Commander in Chief also ordered the owners of NFL teams to dismiss any players that kneel for the Anthem.

In addition to the public outrage, CBSnews reports that NFL ticket sales and network ratings plummeted as confirmed by ticket sellers such as Tickpick and TicketCity. As professional football transformed into an entertainment business with some sport sprinkled into it, the game changed from the rough and tough players regarded as iron men like Dick Butkus, Jack Lambert, Earl Campbell, Decan Jones, and company. People now atted NFL games to drink a few beers, relax with some family and friends, and watch tremendous athletes display their talents, and entertaining fans, a lot like WWE stars have always done. Speaking with long time football enthusiast, Chuck Nucci, he explained that he does not want to watch the NFL when it is involved with politics. Nucci states, “I love football and I watch it for the love of the game. As soon as politics are involved, it’s not enjoyment anymore”. Many Americans feel the same as Nucci which explains the rapid decline in NFL ticket sales.

Like the NFL, collegiate football suffers from Kaepernick’s actions. Rowan University, along with other American colleges, now retain the players in the locker room until the National Anthem is over. I have a personal experience as a football player; I would step onto the field, ready to hear the National Anthem and pay homage to our flag, country, and service men and women only to find out the Anthem had already been played for the fans, and not for the players. Personally for me, the time before a game when I would hear the anthem was a time of great pride, and gave me chills. I would look at Old Glory waving in the wind, and think how thankful I was to play the great game of football in the greatest country in the world. “The Star- Spangled Banner” actually psyched me up as I prepared for “battle” as players and coaches call it. Many of my peers would often feel the same disappointment along with me, no matter the color of their skin, because the playing of the national anthem is a time to honor, not a time to protest.

Kaepernick’s kneeling was also an eye opener to a lot of people, including myself. I personally follow NFL news pretty closely, and I’m not sure if his inability to find a job, and to maintain his NFL quarterback status has made bigger headlines than just NFL Network. Since Kaepernick decided to defy the only thing that everybody knew, which was standing for the National Anthem, he cannot find a job anywhere. No NFL team wants to bring him on the roster because he peacefully protested, which is his constitutional right to do. His protest might have been seen as “disrespectful to the servicemen and women,” but he did not make a mockery out of the Anthem like some players are doing now. Nobody wants to put their name out for Kaepernick, but they will for players like LeSean McCoy of the Buffalo Bills do whatever he pleases. McCoy was seen stretching, and absolutely making a mockery of the National Anthem, and the Buffalo Bills owner and staff had nothing to comment on the matter. This is a double standard, because both men did not participate in the National Anthem, but one did it peacefully, and one made a mockery out of the deal. If McCoy’s actions were not held against him and he is still employed, Kaepernick’s actions, and decision, though may not be agreed upon by everyone, to take a knee and start a peaceful protest should not be held against him either.

There have been many causes and effects that came from Kaepernicks decision to take a knee in the preseason game on August 26th, 2016. From outrage, to unemployment. Any way you slice it, Kaepernick made history with his actions, and with history there is going to be some sort of disagreement. Either way you look at it, either idolizing Kaepernick for his courage, or look down on him for his blatant “disrespect,” there is no such thing as right or wrong, there is only cause and effect.

In more cases than not, taking a knee is a sign of great respect. This is not only seen in ancient societies, such as the knighting of an individual in England, but also seen closer to home, on the playing fields that Americans love so dearly. For example, when a player is injured on the field of play, many players from both sides will kneel out of respect, but never in sports do you see kneeling as a sign of disrespect. That is until Colin Kaepernick so boldly knelt for the playing of our National Anthem.

There has been a lot of controversy over Kaepernick’s debacle, and rightfully so. It seems that the United States as a country has become divisive with a majority of white Americans and military supporting families protest Kaepernick’s actions. In contrast, a majority of the black American population support his stance and the black lives matter movement backs Kaepernick one hundred percent. Realistically Kaepernick’s explanation of his actions was vague in the   post-game interview. Kaepernick alluded to his position; however, he never fully expressed in that interview that his protest sheds light on police brutality against black Americans. Kaepernick only stated that his people were oppressed, they are killed in the streets, and their killers are rewarded with paid leave for murder. One can conclude that he protests police brutality, but Kaepernick never completely explained his protest, in his much sought after interview.

Kaepernick’s protest poses absolutely no effect on law enforcement officers, who killed 223 black Americans in the year following Kaepernick’s protests according to data released in a Huffingtonpost article. The same article goes on to say that “It’s likely that more black people were killed by police during that period of time” [from the time of Kaepernick’s protest to the end of the year].  This can only conclude two things; blacks felt more empowered; therefore,  more willing to test police officers because of the protests and to be known as martyrs, or that police officers exerted more force to show that the protest will not affect them in any way.

The United States has a problem with police brutality considering incidences such as the Philando Castile murder, the shooting of Michael Brown that lead to the Ferguson riot, and Eric Garner, a man choked to death in the streets of New York City. These occurrences were all the work of our law enforcement officials. As much of a problem that police brutality poses, there has also been an extreme increase of black on black crimes since 2016, when the protest was started. An article by the New York Post released the FBI crime logs for the year of 2016, and stated that black on black crimes rose in number by nine hundred compared to 2015. Black Americans are simply ignoring the outrageous number of the murder of their own kind, by their own kind, and focusing on a very small percentage of killings between law enforcement officers and black Americans. Some black Americans will also ignore the fact that black males have made up forty- two percent of cop killers in the last ten years, as stated by New York Post. Police officers now fear for their lives because of the drastic increase of police murders at the hands of black men is significantly higher. A study from National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago concludes that “half of all Americans, regardless of race, say fear caused by the physical danger that police officers face is a major contributor to aggression against civilians.”While cops fear for their lives in the line of duty,  there is still no reason for the killing of innocent black Americans, like Philando Castile, or any Americans for that matter, by police officers when not needed.

When traveling most parts of the country, one observes cops patrolling towns daily and writing the occasional traffic violation. In other parts of the country, like the deep south, where oppression of black Americans still appears alive and well, one will see some, not all, cops using their power in a negative way. These cops are the ones that give all cops a bad name by trying  to instill fear into civilians and abusing the power that they were given to “protect and serve.” This display of police brutality demonstrates racial tensions in the southern states that remain in place in America fifty years after turmoil for equality ravaged the country. With roots from slavery in the deep south, the southern states tend to be more racially prejudice than other areas in the country, possibly due to the antiquated rationale that blacks are slaves and plantation workers, never died.

The 2016 presidential election map shows a majority of the republican voters in southern states (Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Florida) who are predominantly white individuals. These white citizens of the deep south historically have roots to plantation owners, who owned land, which represented wealth and power. These white plantation owners needed slaves to work the fields and harvest crops such as cotton. Some slave owners passed down their land along with their opinions of black Americans on to future generations.  Even though slavery was abolished in 1865 with the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment, there is still racism and prejudices that remain at the center of Kaepernick’s debate.

The feud between black and white Americans may never die in the United States. Some radical whites hold on to the traditions of the old south, with the notion of blacks as chattel slaves. Some blacks will never relinquish the fact that their ancestors were brutally kidnapped from Africa and forced into American slavery. Either way, slavery is in the past and it is the duty of Americans to move past it through learning the facts of black history. But education itself cannot overcome the prejudices and ignorance to black Americans. Both black and white Americans must learn to cast aside their opinions and respect each other as humans to unite in one great nation.

Works Cited

Anderson, Terry H. Movement and the Sixties. Pg 44-45 Oxford University Press. 1995

Babwin, Don. “1918 World Series Started the U.S. Love Affair with National Anthem.” Chicagotribune.com, 4 July 2017, http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/ct-wrigley-field-national-anthem-20170703-story.html.

Berr, Jonathan. “NFL National Anthem Protest Denting Ticket Sales.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 29 Sept. 2017, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/nfl-national-anthem-protest-denting-ticket-sales/.

Branch, John. “Please Rise for Our National Anthem — If You’Re Not Too Busy.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Oct. 2017, http://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/01/sports/football/nfl-anthem-protest.html.

Donald, Heather Mac. “All That Kneeling Ignores the Real Cause of Soaring Black Homicides.” New York Post, New York Post, 27 Sept. 2017, nypost.com/2017/09/26/all-that-kneeling-ignores-the-real-cause-of-soaring-black-homicides/.

“God Bless the U.S.A. – Lee Greenwood.” Google Play Music. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2017.
.are.org/files/The%20Groningen%20Sleep%20Quality%20Scale.pdf>.

Little, Becky. “Why the Star-Spangled Banner Is Played At Sporting Events.” Why the Star-
Spangled Banner Is Played At Sporting Events – History in the Headlines. N.p., 25 Sept.
2017. Web. 29 Oct. 2017. .

Nucci, Chuck. Personal Interview 10, November 2017.

“Philando Castile Killing: Police Video Sparks Outrage.” Philando Castile Killing: Police Video Sparks Outrage | USA News | Al Jazeera. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Oct. 2017. .

“The Lyrics.” NMAH | The Lyrics, amhistory.si.edu/starspangledbanner/the-lyrics.aspx.

“Tony Dungy Speaks Out on NFL Players Kneeling During National Anthem.” Intellectual Takeout, www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/tony-dungy-speaks-out-nfl-players-kneeling-during-national-anthem.

University of Chicago, NORC. “Law Enforcement and Violence: The Divide between Black and White Americans.” Law Enforcement and Violence: The Divide between Black and White Americans Issue Brief | APNORC.org | APNORC.org, http://www.apnorc.org/projects/Pages/HTML%20Reports/law-enforcement-and-violence-the-divide-between-black-and-white-americans0803-9759.aspx.

Waldron, Travis. “Police Killed 223 Black Americans In Year After Colin Kaepernick’s First Protest.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 25 Aug. 2017, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/colin-kaepernick-police-killings-black-americans_us_599c4099e4b04c532f447939.

“2016 Presidential Election Actual Results.” 270toWin.Com, http://www.270towin.com/maps/2016-actual-electoral-map.

1. Research Position Paper- Yoshi

Beyond Fatal Encounters

Some police officers react irrationally to a perceived threat. A threat is a declaration of an intention to inflict punishment, injury, etc. 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. Overall, white people are killed more often than black people because, in America, there are nearly one hundred and sixty billion more white people than black people. But when the population is proportionalized black people are twice as likely to get killed in police shootings as white people. Common knowledge is correct: white cops brutalize black suspects often enough to be statistically relevant. The latitude of response, from an officer, for a black suspect is extremely-thin to nonexistent. Compared to citizens, police are always right, and will mostly always get favored in the jury system. Police, very often, get away with brutalizing innocent citizens, even if the incident is life-threatening to the citizen. About one in five Americans say they know someone physically mistreated or abused by the police, three in five of those people are black.
Police officers are more likely to shoot at a suspect, if they’re not white. This racial bias was apparent in New York City’s racial biased “stop and frisk” program. The Stop and Frisk Program was designed to allow police officers to stop anyone that they deemed suspicious. During the first three months of this 83% of the people that ended up being stopped and frisked were black or latino. Leaving only a maximum of only potentially 17% white people being stopped, which is tremendously less. This study speaks loudly on the very obvious targeting that happens from police.

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.

Eric 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.

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. 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. 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. 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, Garner or Brown, who were unarmed.This child should not have in any circumstance been shot and killed, although the cop could have taken his gun or taken him home, he did not. The officer proceeded to kill a helpless child and many would argue for no other reason then the his physical appearance.

A very apparent thing that the majority of all studies that relate to this topic is that white people are viewed less of a threat then latino or black individuals. John Crawford went into Walmart to purchase a toy gun for his son when police saw him and shot and killed him on site, still inside of the Walmart. Jonathan Ferrell was driving in Charlotte, NC when he got into an accident. He went to a nearby home and tried to knock on the door to ask for help but the residents inside were too afraid to let him in because he was black and called the cops. When the police officers arrived on the scene of the accident Ferrell approached them asking for help and he was shot dead. Akai Gurley was gunned down in his apartment staircase for no real reason at all, the officer only claimed it to be an accident. These are no accidents, these are people’s lives that are being destroyed and families being torn apart because of racism or fear and it’s out of control.

In a popular study, researchers wrote that their analysis of the 990 fatal shootings in 2015 “suggests the police exhibit shooter bias by falsely perceiving blacks to be a greater threat than non-blacks to their safety.” This is another topic that majority of studies all agreed upon, when cops feel threatened they’re more likely to fire and act irrationally. Unfortunately this happens to be in almost every encounter we hear about now. Not every encounter black people have with cops is deadly and not every encounter cops have with black people do they feel threatened, but enough of them are. This causes a very uncomfortable normal that we as a society should not stand for or accept.

The media and news stations often are to blame for this unjustified racism, as well. Often when there’s a black or latino shooting in which people are saying the cop is at fault, the media will flash a picture of the victim making them look bad. They often will use previous criminal photos, or photos of them on the streets with friends and try to portray them as criminals. The reasoning behind this is to spread mass agreement that cop was not wrong and the person who just became a victim for no reason was not really a victim but a criminal in everyday life. In result, this often causes people to leave negative opinions on the deceased and how they were somehow wrong, or how the camera did not show everything. When really cops do perceive non-white males to be more violent and a more apparent threat, which causes people John Crawford, Akai Gurley, Jonathan Ferrell and many more to die for no reason.

There are so many studies and cases showing in which a cop killed an innocent black male or child for no reason other than fear. A young boy playing with a toy gun in a public park or a male just minding his own business walking in a staircase leading to his apartment gets killed for no reason it’s a problem. But this has become so much more than that because there is hundreds of stories almost the same as these or very similar circulating the internet. The media is supposed to be on the same side as the public of the United States of America, but them turning on the victims of these unfair killings is making the problem so much larger.

My worthy but mistaken opponent believes that, police officers kill more black people because they come in contact with them more often. Traffic stops are very random, for the most part officers pull you over for doing something wrong. The officer can not profile the victim, because they do not see the victim until the officer has walked up to the car.  In Cincinnati, Officer Tensing pulled over a 43 year old black man, Samuel DuBose, for not having a front license plate. DuBose began to drive away from the officer, and three officers pursued on foot. After running for a block or two officer Tensing shot DuBose in the head, killing him instantly. In court, Officer Tensing claimed, “I meant to stop the threat, I didn’t shoot to kill him. I didn’t shoot to wound him. I shot to stop his actions.” There was not threat in this situation, police officers exaggerate the word threat and use it in defense for their actions. Officer Tensing had many other decisions to make while in pursuit. He could have shot the tire, this way the car would stop moving. Officer Tensing could have called for back-up this way a police officer could chase DuBose in a car. There were many other options to avoid killing a citizen, there were many other options in order to avoid killing a father, but instead the officer decided to shot DuBose in the head and taking his life away.

My faulty opponent would claim that black people are more likely than white people to flee from police, resist arrest, and attack police and that is why they get brutalized more often. Police are trained to be racist, and they are trained to fear black people. 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 the conductor of the experiment told the officers to shoot anyone deemed suspicious, the officers would shoot more quickly against blacks suspects over white ones. This shows that officers do display some racial bias in shooting suspects. His research found that the police are less likely to view black people as “innocent.” In another study of Cornell’s, police officers were challenged to make fast impulse shooting decisions with speed and accuracy. The data from this experiment showed a racial bias in the speed of their shooting. The police shot more black targets than white targets, and the police shot so fast that it was deemed an impulse, which demonstrates how police develop a bias in their training.

America has had a problem with racism for centuries now. Everyday black people have to overcome their racial-based discrepancy in schooling, employment, economic status, etc.. Black people are more likely than white people to be unemployed, less likely to finish high school, and more likely to live in poverty or go to jail. A study done by a sociology major, shows that employers are less likely to hire someone with “Black sounding names” than someone with a “white sounding name” even when their applications were identical. Similarly enough, only a racial bias can explain why a white man with felony charges is more likely to get an interview than a black man with the same qualifications and a clean record. Even black children get treated unfairly compared to white kids. Tamir Rice for example a little boy that was playing with a gun, at the park that had an orange tag on it. The orange tags indicates 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. In the same instance two boys from Ohio were playing on the street with BB guns. The police was called but this time they did not see an orange tag on the boys gun. The officers did not draw their weapons on the two boys. Instead, the officers approached the boys and arrested them. The same incidents in both situations, but the single black boy with a specified toy gun was killed in two seconds; while the two white boys were calmly approached and arrested.

Black people are seen as a threat in not only police related situations, but also in communities. 27% of all black people live in impoverished communities compared to the 11% of Americans according to Black Demographic studies. 1 out of 3 impoverished area is crime ridden. Black people get shot more because police are usual in crime ridden areas; so there are more encounters with black people over white people; but the reason they do get shot is because of the racial bias police have implemented throughout their training and work life not because they are doing something wrong. Research shows that police officers gain a cognitive bias based on their instinct. Police are more inclined to shoot at black males over white males even if the reasoning is the exact same.

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.

Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, John Crawford, and Samuel DuBose have unfortunately become well known victims of the racist police hatred. Although these are by no means all of the victims or situations that have unfolded, they have become some of the more popular. Through their tragic stories as a nation we need to strive for unity and equality for all men and women, regardless of race. People’s lives are hanging in the balance along with unneeded fear that has been instilled in the majority of black males. A failure to signal or a simple few MPH over the stated speed limit should never leave the driver in fear for what may result out of his encounter with an enforcer of the law. Police officers are supposed to uphold the law for the safety of the general public in addition to making people feel safe. There’s no reason as well as no excuse for a legal citizen to feel fearful of a conversation he must have with a cop and something must be done about this. The only way we can fix this is by spreading awareness and collectively as a nation agreeing it’s wrong. Once everyone agrees it needs to be solved then it will, but until all we can do is statistically prove there is an epidemic-like problem growing that needs fixing. When we finally achieve this level of understanding and unity as a society we will have lower police caused death rates as well as us not having individuals worried for their lives.

Works Cited

Brooks, Rosa. “America’s Police Problem Isn’t Just About Police.” Foreign Policy, Foreign Policy, 5 Jan. 2016, foreignpolicy.com/2016/01/05/americas-police-problem-isnt-just-about-police-guns-violence/.

Adams, Kenneth, Geoffrey P. Alpert, Roger G. Dunham, Use of Force By Police: Overview of National and Local Data Series [Research report]. Washington, DC: U.S. National Institute of Justice.

Black, D. (1976). The behavior of law. New York: Academic Press. Google Scholar. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0734016805275675

Graham, David A. “The Mysterious Death of Freddie Gray.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 22 Apr. 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-mysterious-death-of-freddie-gray/391119/.

“Police Misconduct: Experience and Perception.” Cato Institute, CATO Institute, http://www.cato.org/policing-in-america/chapter-3/police-misconduc-experience-and-perception.

Lowery, Wesley. “Study Finds Police Fatally Shoot Unarmed Black Men at Disproportionate Rates.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 7 Apr. 2016. Web.

Pages, The Society. “PATTERNS OF POLICE SHOOTINGS: One Year after Ferguson – Sociology Toolbox.” Sociology Toolbox PATTERNS OF POLICE SHOOTINGS One Year after Ferguson Comments, thesocietypages.org/toolbox/ferguson/.

Pages, The Society. “POLICE KILLING OF BLACKS: Data for 2015, 2016, 2017 – Sociology Toolbox.” Sociology Toolbox POLICE KILLING OF BLACKS Data for 2015 2016 2017 Comments. Web.

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.

Press, Associated. “Samuel DuBose Shooting: Second Mistrial Declared in Officer’s Murder Trial.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 23 June 2017, http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/23/samuel-dubose-shooting-ray-tensing-trial-mistrial.

 

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/

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/