Saints & Roughnecks

1. One of the reasons that the Saints were overlooked for their delinquent behavior was their academic success.  The Saints usually maintained an A or B in classes while the Roughnecks would fail or get very low grades. The Saints would drink and get drunk in bars while the Roughnecks would be drunk in public. The Saints did also financially okay while Roughnecks had tougher times financially. Of course, people usually look at people’s backgrounds to see if there way of life is influenced by their home-life. The Roughnecks had it rougher and therefore were blamed for many of their criminal acts. Since the Saints didn’t have it as tough, people really didn’t point fingers at them. It’s all about the environment everyone grows up in. If you have it rough, you’re going to have rough stereotypes on you, even if you aren’t that bad.
2. Not necessarily a serial killer but he killed someone. I forgot his name but we went to one of his motivational speeches that he has to do for community service. He killed someone while texting and driving. His life changed forever because of what he did. He served his time and jail and now has to go around doing talks for part of community service. He can’t drive and relies on people to drive him to work. Not only does it affect him but it affects his wife and kid. One small action can change one’s life forever. Now he has to live with guilt of killing an innocent man for the rest of his life.

Freddie Gray

Did Freddie Gray let down his country or did his country let him down? In this whole situation, I believe that Freddie Gray is not innocent, but his rough upbringing probably did not help the case. More importantly, what happened to him in the police van that was transporting Gray was uncalled for. He had a tough upbringing and even lived in a house with lead paint that poisoned him and led him to developing disorders such as ADD. Freddie lived in a tough part of Baltimore; a place many people try to avoid. One day on April 12, Freddie Gray was pursued by cops by foot when Gray started running when seeing a cop. I find it strange why he started running when he saw the cops and then why the cops decided to chase after him. Either Freddie did something that he thought he had to run from the cops (since he had numerous run-ins with the law previous to this particular arrest) or did the cops have some type of stereotypical idea that some black man was running from them and there for he must be guilty for something. The police found a switchblade that apparently was illegal in the state of Maryland and broke the code of possessing a weapon in the city of Baltimore. When taken into custody, bystanders witnessed Freddie screaming in agony when being dragged to the police van that would transport him. When the van made its stop at the police station, medics were called to take Gray to a hospital because he slipped in a coma. His family stated he slipped in a coma by fractured vertebrae and that his spine was severely severed at the place of his head. He also suffered a heart attack but was successfully resuscitated even though he never gained consciousness. Gray would later die a week later from his injuries, leading to Baltimore to go in an outrage, especially the black community.
Police brutality is something that happens. When cops think they have all the power in the world to do whatever they want because they sport badge. That's not the case. There is no reason to beat up on someone even if they are guilty. They are still human. Six Baltimore cops were suspended for their actions and handling of Freddie Gray. Riots ensued in the city of Baltimore. The story of Freddie Gray was widespread and on the news every day. Even though Freddie Gray may have not been the most innocent man to live, he certainly died in an unlawful way. Police, who are supposed to protect civilians from harm, were the reason Freddie Gray died that day. Police officers let their country down. Police officers let down the city of Baltimore and Gray himself.

Guns, Power and White Privilege

As of today, we live in a society where the majority of the people are white. The white race is the dominant race in America, as many white-ran media outlets will try to show you. As much as you would like to say that our country America, land of the free and home of the brave, is racist-free, it's not. Racism still lingers in today's air. The news will show you many shootings and robberies committed by blacks or even blacks getting shot down. Many will generalize that they had it rough growing up, and that they are all just a bunch of young "thugs". However, if you see white kids fooling with guns you see nothing wrong with it. They are just harmless. Media has influenced the human ideology into believing that the blacks or the minorities are the reason for all the violence and the trouble that brews. White privilege, the idea that if you are white you have the upper hand in today's society and can easily get away with things that non-whites can't, exists. It is no myth because you can see it with your own eyes. Turn on the television, maybe go read the newspaper and see for yourself. But, if you look at all the school shootings that have happened, 97% of the perpetrators are white. We don't call any of them "thugs". Their motives are to shoot as many people as possible and then take their own life in the end of their kill spree. That is one of the only times you will actually see white people on the news for killing people. When Sandy Hook happened, it was on the news for weeks. It just happens that Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook villain, was white. Other than that, I can't recall watching the news and hearing about a white guy shooting others, due to the fact that White Privilege is alive and well and that media will show mostly minority screw-ups, just because they are minorities and the whites are the majority.
The 2nd Amendment, which states that we all have the right to bear arms, was drafted by white men. Black people or any minority in particular back then had no say on anything, regarding making up our country's foundation. Our country was found basically by the white man. Rules were drafted by the white man. America's society make-up was created through the eyes of the white man. We are a white man society. A long time ago when America was only 100 years old, the National Rifle Association was created.The NRA, of course was made by white people  One of the main reasons for the creation of this association was to improve marksmanship, especially those that were to fight in any war. It promotes the 2nd Amendment and gun safety. There are over 5 million members in the NRA as of today. The NRA, because it is a huge gun promoting association, is a scapegoat for the misuse of firearms, such as school shootings or slayings of others by a gun. The one thing I found interesting was back in 1967, when the blacks wanted to carry a gun for protection, the NRA supported the Mulford Act, which restricted people from carrying hand guns. An organization who promotes the usage of guns and all of a sudden they are supporting the restriction of guns. Is it because they are scared? A study backs this up a little by saying whites are more likely to shoot someone who isn't white. They have a quicker reaction to fatal decisions. The whites seem to be trigger-happy when it comes to decisions like this. Is it the stereotypes that we see on television or any news outlet the reason we are scared? Honestly, every race is guilty of murder! No race the superior race. No race is perfect. Yet, when we live in a society where whites have the privilege, the whites tend to get away with a lot. If you see a white cop kill a black man, it was the black man's fault for retaliating, even if the cop was using unnecessary force.
What is the future of guns? Guns will one day become an ancient artifact. Guns and the control of them are becoming such controversy that America will one day get rid of guns as we know it. Or, guns might be like drugs. Some people use drugs even if they know their illegal. A man or woman might secretly still keep a gun with them even if the laws says otherwise. When people get caught with drugs, they go to prison for possession of drugs. You can go to jail with possession of firearms but that's only if your in public. We're talking about them just being your house! "Oh honey, the cops are here, hide our guns!" The 2nd Amendment would change forever and the NRA wouldn't exist. Only the army can possess firearms. But how would the world fare without firearms? Well, there would be less paranoia. A white man can't fire his pistol at a minority if he's scared. Maybe there should be an experiment for one moth or maybe a year where the 2nd Amendment doesn't exist and guns are illegal under any circumstance. Emotions and economics would be effected greatly. Honestly, we couldn't live in a society without guns. Gun sales bring in good money for the USA and even if guns were illegal just like drugs, people would still smuggle them.
What would happen when one day, the whites are no longer the majority in America. In fact, Hispanics are slowly becoming the majority. Would the paranoia whites have lived since the creation of the gun increase? I believe gun sales at this time would soar. Same for any other minority. We are all going to be paranoid by all those stereotypes that we learned about that we will buy guns to protect us. Guns will be our new homeland security. Deaths of firearms will increase due to the human race looking over their shoulder every minute, fearing if they are about to die. Guns wouldn't be a big issue if everyone knew how to properly use one, but since their are idiots in our society that have no idea how to use one properly, we will continue to live in a world with paranoia.

Article on Deviance

I found an article on deviance that deals with a serial killer and how his home life was based off of deviant behavior. The serial killer, Kyle Alegria, was found guilty of kidnapping, raping and sexually assaulting a seven year old girl. A psychologist inspected Alegria and stated that if Kyle's parents' goal was to bring up a kid who has a good chance of being a criminal with sexual and violent deviance, they did a great job. As a young boy, Kyle Alegria was exposed to domestic violence, pornography and violent horror movies as a young kid. By the age of three years old, Kyle was already watching porn in which both of his parents encouraged. His parents wanted his addiction to these types of things to flourish. When Kyle was about seven or eight, he was raped by another neighborhood kid. Even though Alegria's parents both knew about this raping, they took no action and thought nothing of it. Alegria would go on to tell his psychologist that he would often times have sexual fantasies about his mother and that most of his life, images of sex and violence were engraved into his head.                                                                                                                                            It goes to show that if you are raised in a certain way, it will most likely carry on as life progresses. If you are taught as a young child that sex and violence are an okay thing, you will most likely take these teaching and accept them as moral standards. If a set of parents would like their son or daughter to grow up and be someone society can respect, do us a favor and raise your kids the right way. Young kids look to their mom and dad as influences and if parents aren't very good people and have unacceptable principles, your kid will most likely soak up the way they live and follow the example of his or her parents.

FYI: Article used for this blog.

Me

There are different ways that determine the personality a person has. The four main ones are: birth order, heredity, parental characteristics, and cultural environment. Each is like an ingredient that is combined to make one big recipe. I guess I am a fruitcake after all. I am the middle child, or what some make call “the forgotten child.” The middle child as traits such as a peacemaker, independent, creative, attuned to others, and a “chameleon”. I guess I do like the feeling of being independent and not having people telling me how to do things. That’s one reason why I’m still single, I believe. I do try to help anyone who needs help, but I don’t see myself much as a peacemaker. If there’s any trouble or conflict, I try to stay out of it and walk away from it. I do believe I’m creative! I love writing because I feel like I can express myself better than actually talking. I like making stories and do a little drawing at times. I feel creativity is a big characteristic of mine and hopefully will help me find a job that will build on it more. As for being a social chameleon, yes and no. I will get along with anyone who gets along with me. I don’t care if you’re popular, unpopular, athletic, not athletic, purple or yellow, If you give me the time of day, I’ll do my best to give you mine. I have friends in different social circles and that’s okay.

            When it comes to heredity, I’m a mix of my parents. I’ve been told I look like my mom while others comment I look like my dad. I got my dad’s round face and eye color but other than that I see a lot of my mom’s traits, like hair color or how my eyes look. Both my parents are fairly average in height but short height is very common on both sides of the family and probably contributes to why I only stand 5’9’’. I was blessed with low metabolism that both my parents share but also blessed with good taste in food.

            As for parental characteristics; when I look at my mom and dad, I see some characteristics from my dad and more from my mom. My dad is an introvert which I identify as myself. He doesn’t really look for conversation unless he is approached. He will talk with you as long as you start talking. This is definitely me. He’s not very patient and neither am I. He’s not really good at comebacks or receiving what he dishes out and neither am I. Dad’s sense of humor is a hidden treasure, which I think I inherit some of it. As for my mom, I get her sensitivity, forgetfulness, care for others, able to perform in front of others, creativity, and able to know what’s right and what’s wrong. She also has a good sense of humor that is also embedded inside of me. If there is anyone who is feeling down or needs help cheering up, I will do anything just to make someone happy and smile. That is what my mom does best.

            And finally we have cultural environment. My mom is Catholic and has heavily influenced my religious beliefs. Ever since I was a baby, mom would take me and my sister to church. We didn’t have a cable when I was a toddler so my mom would read stories from the bible to me and teach me what Jesus was all about. By the age of five, I would be praying a rosary. Now that my dad converted to Catholicism, we are strict in a religious sense. Mom still makes sure we all get to church Sunday morning or even Saturday evening if we have to. Even though there are things I disagree with that the Catholic Church says, my mom thinks it’s all right. I believe that homosexuality is fine while she believes that gays go to hell. I asked her once what she’d say if I ever said I was gay and she would tell me to “get back in the closet.” As I grew up a boy, I was surrounded by mostly female. My dad worked a lot as a kid growing up so I hung out with my mom or my older sister. I was really close with my Grandma too! I feel that since I was around girls a lot as a youngster, I get along with a lot of girls. I’m not bragging because I get friend zoned by every single one, but I feel like I can relate to them easier than most guys could. I try to be nicer to them just because I know they can be a little more sensitive than boys. I remember if I made my mom cry when I was little, I would feel devastated and would try anything to cheer her up. I think moments like that really influenced how I help girls who are experiencing sadness.

            Out of all of these, which is most important? I think all of them are important. Each helps me shape who I am. It’s interesting how your personality is built on many different types of blocks. Many of it comes from your parents. I think it’s really important for parents to be there for their kids. I’m blessed to have great parents who took care of me properly and taught me good morals who made me…..me.

Happy Veteran's Day

First and foremost, I would just like to thank every veteran who have served their time in the military and courageously fighting to preserve our freedom. Without any of you, we wouldn't be the country we are today. Happy Veteran's Day!
Now onto the debate for today. Today's debate is brought you by the letter M. What are my thoughts on murder charges during a war? Lt. Clint Lorance was sentenced to twenty years for misconduct. He violated a rule of ceasing fire unless they have evidence of hostile action or intent. Clint ordered his band to open fire on three men on a motorcycle that was headed right toward them; not intending to stop. Not only did he get jail time, but his pay was forfeited and was dismissed from the military. Please free this man. All he was doing was protecting himself and his men from potential danger. Last time I checked, people die in wars all the time. Death is going to happen in a war. People are going to kill other people in the war. No, murder charges should not allowed in war situations. Protect yourself in any aspect before you get wrecked by your enemy. If were in Clint's situation at that moment, what would you do? Soldiers are under so much pressure during scenarios like that so it's their right to act upon whatever they might see as a threat. Honestly, I would probably tell my men to open fire if I felt as if they were intending to do harm on me. George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin because he thought he was a threat, but George was found innocent and is roaming the streets freely as we speak.
"Citizenship is a duty, not a privilege." Yes and no. We should be privileged to our liberties that we are all given, but it's not all fun and games. It is our duty to abide by the rules and try to keep good morals. We are obligated to do these things thanks to our troops. Hope everyone has a good Veteran's Day and God bless.

Racism

Racism is a man-made conception. It's an idea that we humans made up inside our minds to try to cover up our fears of different people by belittling them by calling them vulgar names or maybe even enslaving them to do their work. In the first article that was basically twenty paragraphs of intellectual insight, the author gives his view on racism and explain racism was an idea that man created when we started enslaving different races. Once the idea of slavery became a world-wide phenomenon, the idea of racism floated around into different parts of the world. Somewhere in his article he goes on to say how the concept of religion influenced the concept of racism. Religion is to believe in a set of deities and beliefs, which could be anything you want to believe. With the rise of Christianity, crusaders would go on to persecute the followers of Islam and try to conqueror the Jewish city of Jerusalem. Persecution is racism; it's the ill-treatment of a person, and in the case of racism it's the minorities. I could agree on the fact that religion helped shape the idea of racism because if you believed or practiced something different from the majority, you were persecuted. It's funny how religion is supposed to preach holiness and peace yet many wars and outbreaks of violence occurred due to religion.





In the second article, the author's main purpose is to tell us how racist America is. Our culture is made up of many racists. It just isn't prejudice against the blacks, but even Asians have been discriminated. Citizens of America are known to have passed laws that either ban or encourage discrimination against different races. In fact, we had to add Amendments to our Constitution just so we could attempt to keep everybody equal. Even though we have these Amendments, we are still a racist society. We are always putting unfair stereotypes on different races. I believe one of the reasons of this is how the media portrays them. Things like movies or the news can manipulate how we view people. It can also give people a fear that shouldn't even exist. For example, Blacks are unfairly stereotyped as thugs due to what television and movies show us. We looks at cases like the shooting of Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown and see young African American boys getting shot because the perpetrator had stereotypes in their mind about the media version of Blacks. You also see Islamic people being discriminated because a couple radicals who practice Islam decided to do unfortunate things on 9/11. We all now stereotype Muslims as terrorists due to this day. Just because a minority of a race do bad things doesn't mean the whole race should be oppressed. That's just how it is with every race.





The third and final article is basically what I hit on in the last paragraph. Media is always putting unfair stereotypes on different races. Media portraying different races wrongfully dates back from a long time ago. In fact, many movies and cartoons (yes, the things that young children watch) from the 30's, 40's and 50's displays many elements of racism. For example, a very popular cartoon that we've all seen and love is Tom and Jerry. Tom and Jerry was known to show many pieces of racism. The cartoon shows a black maid with a strong black dialect and showing low intelligence. Tom and Jerry also showed many scenes with "Blackface." Blackface was a popular thing back in the day that occurred in film and television. Blackface is when a performer puts on make-up to make them look black and then they act like the stereotypical black person. Around the 0:57 mark of this clip from Tom and Jerry, you can see an example of it. This is another good clip showing what Blackface was. Things have really changed as now we have evolved into a more politically correct state when it comes to what the media shows. Still, many of the things we see on television lead us to still believe in the stereotypes in races. We are shown African-Americans getting in trouble or illegal Latinos sneaking into America. The media brainwashes us into believing in these received ideas of races that we all fear and hate each other. Racism is the worst man-made conception to ever be made up and can easily destroy mankind.




We are racist because we are scared. We are scared of how different people can be. There is nothing wrong with being different but the fear of the unknown is what gets us hating on others. Racism is an idea. Just because your skin is a different color or your God is different from their God doesn't mean you should differentiate people. We are all humans! We all have feelings and ambitions! We all bleed red and are born only to die later and be covered in dirt! Even though we are all trying to end racism, how come we are still deeply promoting it? For example, when you have to circle in what ethnicity you are on a test or a form for employment. Does it really matter if your Asian or Latino trying to take the ACT or applying for a job or trying to get a driver's license? It shouldn't because the document that gave us freedom (Declaration of Independence) states in the second paragraph and I quote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The only way we will stop racism is to stop viewing people as "black" or "white" or "Asian" or "Hispanic". Why can't we just look at the big picture and realize that we are all human. There are good and bad people in every race. We got to pull our heads out of our behinds and realize that sometimes we got to see the good in everybody. Not everyone will be a goody two-shoes and it's going to come with every race. Let's put our differences aside and finally realize that we are all humans and not judge people unfairly because that's what racism really is.




I would like to share this video of Morgan Freeman's solution to stop racism. Very intelligent man that I agree with completely. #Freeman2020