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Many people in the U.S have served for their country and in doing so, because of certain positions (like a combat veteran), have suffered traumatic experiences because of it. The victims of PTSD can carry a lot of grief along with survivor's guilt for many. When veterans come back from war, they can also struggle with substance abuse, anger issues, isolation, and more. The topic of treatment for vets with PTSD is a somewhat controversial one since treatment options can vary from therapy and psychotropic drugs, to alternatives like marijuana, but since that is still federally illegal, it is hard to bring to light.  PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is a disorder characterized by failure to recover after experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event. It is a big issue since such a large number of people that go into the war have traumatic experiences and can come back with their lives completely changed. PTSD affects about 31 percent of veterans just from the Vietnam War, but not just veterans. About 5.2 million people will experience PTSD in the U.S. during the course of a given year. If you suffer from any type of traumatic experience, you risk the chance of getting PTSD.

Veterans deal with even more issues like losing their houses, jobs, families, and more on top of dealing with mental stress. Psychiatrist and author Jonathan Shay explains how veteran’s personalities can be different when they return from combat “In combat, you have to shut down those emotions that do not directly serve survival. So sweetness, the gentler forms of humor, grief -- all shut down. And this is profoundly disconcerting to families when a soldier comes back, and he seems to be made out of ice. It's not that he is irrevocably and permanently incapable of feeling anything, yet that this adaptation of shutting down those emotions that don't directly serve survival in combat is persisting”. While in combat, soldiers are trained to fight and survive, so that leaves them to repress their emotions. Because of the strong belief among soldiers that the only thing that should be on your mind is serving and giving your all, processing what is actually happening is ignored. That is big reason as to why veterans realize that something is wrong when they come home.

Veterans do not realize that they may have a disorder like PTSD until after some time because sometimes they do not know until they recognize the many outbursts, severe anxiety, and insomnia/nightmares. To treat this, vets can get drugs to help with PTSD, but there are many downsides. “Mental health experts say the military's prescription drug problem is exacerbated by a U.S. Central Command policy that dates to October 2001 and provides deploying troops with up to a 180-day supply of prescription drugs under its Central Nervous System formulary.” Many of the drugs prescribed to veterans can be helpful forms of treatment, but the physical strain it puts on their minds and bodies can be even more damaging. Since a lot of the drugs are addictive, if you start to abuse them, it can be near impossible to stop. Drugs like Elavil is an antidepressant that actually caused suicidal thoughts, so the FDA now requires it to carry a black-box warning.

It is clear that militarism is heavily ingrained in our society and PTSD is a consequence of it, in and outside of war. These are ideas that we have to grasp, because people suffer from these disorders whether you recognize it or not. Your mind is so powerful that how you feel can technically be out of your control. PTSD is a real problem people face everyday and it requires awareness, especially for the people that have served for their country.

When you’re asked what is violence and how it is categorized nine times out of ten the first thing that would come to mind is someone punching another person in the face, a kid bullying another kid, or even in extreme cases war. Commonly after having these initial thoughts, once you have the chance to think more about it you develop stronger thought.  But have you ever thought of the violence of economic imperialism with big business? How we as Americans unknowingly inflict a violence economically on a daily basis?

Imperialism is the act of extending a country’s power and influence through diplomacy or force. According to its official definition. But economic imperialism is when a country extends its power to another in ways that affect it economically. As with recent rhetoric from our POTUS, we’ve have heard how jobs have been outsourced by American companies to be made cheaper. But we never think about what happens with these outsourced jobs or how the cheap labor affects the employees. There are lower quality workspaces for these employees to the point where suicide and death is common among these work forces, pay is abysmal and employees cannot be able to afford the products they are making. Big business colonize these third-world and low-income areas with factories with poor conditions and low income because they can get away with it.

We invest in many industries that profit off of sweatshops and one of the biggest ones is iPhone sweatshops where employees are paid as little as £1.12 per hour for things that cost over 600 dollars sometimes even as high as 1000 dollars. Employees on these wages could barely afford the cheapest iPad after two months of work. Not only is this unfair pay for how much products are sold for, but the real violence is what goes on within those sweatshops. Where underage people are employed are on a regular day, and more than 18 people are killed themselves specifically in a factory in Shenzhen. Where new “safety” precautions are nets put up all around the factory to prevent more people from killing themselves.  

Spotted in pop culture and in traditions that people from all over the world have is diamonds. A reoccurring theme with Americans is that we never seem to look deeply into how we obtain these things to buy but just that they are brought to us and the way diamonds are brought to us is horrifying. The practices of mining diamonds is commonly called blood diamonds because of the amount of death and malpractices that happen while mining for these. Child labor is also another common practice within this industry. Many times boys as young as nine work with older siblings, fathers, or both to mine the diamonds that we wear on our fingers, around our necks, and on our ears. While miners obtain minimal wages for their described as back breaking work. Businesses that refine diamonds are the ones making big money by profiting off of these rare and widely demanded gems.

A movement that has gained a strong pushed but slowly has died down is the child labor movement in the Middle East. For decades children are sold by their parents to carpet makers primarily to make the highly coveted and expensive hand made carpets. These children are typically starved, mistreated, and abused while making these carpets for consumers. How does American big businesses affect this? These handmade rugs are imported and sold for hudreds sometimes thousands of dollars while these children receive none of the profits and are forced to keep creating them in a broken system.

It takes a more creative approach to think about things that are truly acts of violence or things that could cause violence that we do that impacts the world. We usually only think of war as the biggest cause for how we as American citizens create violence but the small things like what type of phone we buy, the jewelry we wear, and the things we buy to furnish our home violently affect others around the world in many different ways.

I walked through the gated doors and was greeted by the school police officer. “Arms out, legs apart. You know the drill!” she yelled in a Spanish accent. It was a daily routine for us and our young middle school minds thought nothing of it. We didn’t know our uniforms would turn into jumpsuits and our teachers would turn into our parole officers. They conditioned us like prisoners. I don’t remember a day I didn’t hear “tuck your shirt in” or “get out of the hallway.” We were forced to walk in straight lines to our classrooms as if we were inmates walking to our cells. We were never treated as students because we never were. Our textbooks shackled us to the table and didn’t allow us to move. They claim they did this because they wanted us to succeed but how can you teach me to live the life of a prisoner but excel in the world of the “free?” Too many public schools in today’s society confuse “educate” with “discipline.” Instead of educating the youth they mold them into model inmates ready to be shipped off to next prison they build.

From the NY Times Article, School-to-Prison Pipeline, it talked about what criminalizing students can do to them “However, by criminalizing routine disciplinary problems, they have damaged the lives of many children by making them more likely to drop out and entangling them, sometimes permanently, in the criminal justice system.” By introducing a child to criminal justice system you entangle them into that lifestyle forever. Majority of these problems exist in inner city schools. All of these problem stemmed from the Zero tolerance policy. The Zero tolerance policy was introduced to all schools in the U.S. in 1994. What the policy does is require school officials to hand down specific, consistent, and harsh punishment to its students. This conditions students to live the life of a prisoner before they even commit a real crime.

From an article by Annette Fuentes she talks about the minor things children would be punished for “Disrupting class, using profanity, acting up on a school bus, truancy, and fighting in a school hallway can lead to a class C misdemeanor ticket and a court appearance for the student and her/his parent, plus court costs of up to $500.” Minor offenses like these put children in the criminal justice system, jeopardizing their future careers and virtually erasing their past, no matter how great it might have been. They punish children like this in inner city schools because they know they are more likely to be incarcerated. Approximately 12-13 % of Americans are African-American but they constitute 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population. Inner city schools are filled with minorities and they are conditioned to live the life they are expected to live. They prepare them for jumpsuits by correcting their uniforms and prepare them for sentencing with suspensions.

We should not have our school systems like prisons. This eventually affects them tremendously in the future, and we should not put our children through this. We should come together to end this issue and evolve our schools and our communities to make them safer instead of dangerous.

Sources:

The Editorial Board. "The School-to-Prison Pipeline." The New York Times. The New York Times, 29 May 2013. Web. 16 Mar. 2017. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/opinion/new-york-citys-school-to-prison-pipeline.html>.

“Head down, look straight ahead. Earbuds in, volume off. Walk quickly, but with purpose. Don’t make eye contact unless you need to. Look behind you every few blocks, make sure you’re not being followed. Don’t be obvious.” These are the rules me and probably many other females live by when walking down the street by themselves. One of the most common street harassments are cat calls. When a male see’s a female in the street and says “yurrppp” or “shawty with the grey tights.” ,they think it’s cute but it’s honestly disrespectful and immature and some females take much more of an offense to it than others.

I remember one time I was coming home from work in the summer and I was wearing a loose and comfortable pink dress with my hair tied up in a bun. The sun was shining so bright, my face was glowing.  I was happy, smiling and shining because I was finally off work about to go home and relax. I was approaching a group of loud guys and each of them had on all black. I was a bit intimidated,  so I hurried and put my headphones in before I walked passed. I didn’t have time to put music on, so  I was hoping they didn’t talk to me. As I was walking past, all I heard was “yo ma” from one of the guys, another one said, “Ayo! I know you heard my mans calling you.” I just kept walking and never looked back.

  I’ve always wondered the purpose of catcalling aka street harassment and why guys do it. Do they do it because they actually want the female or to impress buddies of theirs or even both? Either one, in a female's eyes it makes you look thirsty and desperate, but I personally think it’s funny. In an interview with Jared Marcelle and Michael Kimmel they were discussing each other’s views on cat calling. “It really has very little to do with the woman. It has to do with your relationship with the other guys. It's about, you know, doing it in front of other guys. You know what I mean?” Kimmel went on to say. In other words, guys catcall to show off in front of other guys.Late on in the interview, Kimmel gave a better word to describe this situation and it’s called “homosocial.” It makes a little bit more sense because I’ve always realized after I get catcalled by a guy, they always look at their friends for approval or to laugh or joke. The best part of it all is that if you walk right past them like they not even there they get mad and say “Well that’s why you ugly anyways” or “thot.”

Some may often say that women get treated the way they allow themselves to get treated. I agree but also disagree with this statement. When a man says or does something to a women, the women can respond two ways. She can either go along with the guy, give him her number or she can ignore and walk away and also say “no.” That’s where females make the choice to get “treated” a certain way. It all depends on self worth and self confidence. If a girl thinks that they think they are worth a guy catcalling them then that’s how they think they should get treated. Getting catcalled can be a confidence booster for some girls or women. She may feel as if she is cute or better then someone else. Getting cat called can also lower a girl’s confidence. She may question her worth or her ability to get someone who respects her as a women and doesn’t look at her as a toy.

Gender roles plays a  huge role in society, men are always labeled as the ¨ bad people¨, and  women are labeled are the ¨weaker links¨. Just because men are homosocial and catcall girls because their buddies are around doesn’t make them bad people. I do believe that guys are able to respectfully approach a women without being disrespectful or even harmful. It takes a special  girl to change a man’s street ways, and it can take a good friend to encourage his friend to change. It also is a man’s responsibility to stop trying to show off for his friends in order to successfully talk to a girl without offending her in anyway.  Men aren’t bad people but they put women through bad things, things other than catcalling. There has many many acts of violence toward women. It all comes down to gender roles, men are expected to be the ‘tougher’ ones then women. We are looked at as the weaker links.

Citations:

CNN. Cable News Network, n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.

Interview. Radio Rookies: Reformed Catcaller Explores Roots Of Street Harassment. N.p., 23 Aug. 2016. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.

Why Do Kids Join Gangs?

Many youngsters who grow up in environments where gang violence is common often end up as members of gangs, especially boys. But why is this? Why is this activity hard to avoid and escape? More importantly, from a wider perspective, why is it hard to break the tendency for communities to foster gang development? Gangs are known to be stressful and dangerous, for members and for those in the wider community--and yet they persist. Former members, such as Cordozar Calvin Broadus, aka Snoop Dogg, and other hip-hop legends, have described how they grew up in gangs such as the notorious Rollin’ 20s Crips. It was a life of selling cocaine and making glamorous riches at the expense of others, but also a life of fear. Many gang members die young, and incarceration ultimately claims many. The risks heavily outweigh the riches, and yet...

There are several motivating factors for the persistence of gangs. Personality has something to do with it, for example. Those who find excitement in risky and high-stakes social activity would naturally take part in the gang experience. But that does not really explain the prevalence and persistence of gangs, which bring in young people with all kinds of personalities. Sociologists attribute one big motivator to the survival of gang life, and that is the continuing tendency of fatherlessness in some economically fragile communities. This is a problem for young people, especially boys, because they lack necessary male role models on which to pattern their own lives, values, and behavior. Without enough men to model a mature approach to managing the challenges of life, boys will naturally turn towards the older male gang members as models of behavior and as sources of approval. Older gang members have authority, street knowledge, and seem to have self-confidence, which kids look up to in a confusing world. On top of that, the gangs also provide a sort of “family” experience that feels good. It has a structure and authority figures, which are important sources of order. Kids can feel a sense of belonging to an orderly organization. Because gang life is a cycle that keeps recreating itself, the male role models are involved in the gangs and don’t break out of gang organizations to form traditional family units and begin parenting their own children, which means their own children may turn to gang life later on.

Another motivational factor to consider here is poverty. Poverty means not many people in a given community have jobs or income or wealth, and of those who do, earnings are low, jobs are demanding with little flexibility or sick time, and almost no one owns property or wealth of any kind. Many of these specific poor people collect welfare and other forms of government assistance, which allows them to survive, but does not necessarily foster skills for meaningful work that pays well or help with the development of wealth. There is stress and suffering in these communities, and gangs can seem like a way out of that. For example, many of the gangs that formed in the early 1980s in some cities did so where it was extremely hard for teens to get summer jobs, so the teens turned to the sale of drugs and created gangs as business structures to obtain wholesale drugs and distribute them. Gangs often form around the sale of drugs. After all, some people crave the high that, say, cocaine, offers, and while a one-man drug seller seems like a good source of money, a whole gang is a solid business, with workers to obtain and sell drugs, provide lookout and protection, and manage and distribute income. This business structure makes gang life an attractive source of income in an already poor environment.

There is a third element that also negatively affects some children and can cause them to turn toward gangs, and that is a lack of involvement in education. A good education usually depends on a stable home with parents holding children up to high expectations and reinforcing what the teachers are teaching. In poorer communities, families are not always able to do this. There can be crises resulting in illness in the family, drug addiction, and homelessness. Some families move frequently, and the children change schools a lot, causing disruptions in their education. All of this contributes over time to struggles in school. School can become frustrating, and students stop attending and drop out. Gang life can provide something for them to do that involves their peers, and because gangs can be run like a business, gang life provides an education of its own. It is not a good or ideal one, but it teaches business skills, money management, problem solving, social interaction with superiors and others, community history, and strategic thinking, and so it fills the education gap. Young people don’t have to keep feeling lost or frustrated at school, but still there’s the experience of gaining knowledge, which is important to all human beings..

In conclusion, it is the lack of proper support from healthy institutions such as family, schools, and the local economy that help cause young people to turn to gang life. They look for the good that these institutions offer, but they find it in criminal organizations such as gangs. Most likely, if the youth had access to the positive institutions, most likely they would not join gangs. One such example is the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates. Coates currently works at The Atlantic as a journalist and has received praise for his writings such as “The Case for Reparations.” Although he is very successful, Coates grew up in a rough part of Baltimore during the 1980s, a part that was controlled by small rival gangs that dealt drugs such as crack. Despite this, Coates had a father who was fair to him, yet at the same time was very firm. He even at one point apparently had to “beat” Coates, but afterwards he said “It’s better I do it once than the gangs or police do it possibly multiple times.” With that guidance and caring, Coates did not become lost in gang life but found his way to success and a better living situation. If communities can figure out a way to provide loving authority figures, economic opportunity, and supportive education to young people who are disadvantaged, communities may find a way to end gang life.

Bibliography

Chicago Gangland - Children at War! CBS, 1989.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OYnVla3mNU&t=72s

Chicago Violence: SMILE Documentary. Directed by Marquis Daisy. --.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZRIKkm5yCw

Cocaine Scandals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4mxBMYS0aw&t=229s

Deep Inside the Gangster Disciples Street Gang.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBMXVXvjkYk

Planet Rock: The Story Of Hip Hop And The Crack Generation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zswrGZP7jUY&t=28s

The Social Media Militia

We’re constantly being tempted to open those colorful little squares and plug into our own little worlds, where we choose to like someone’s picture, or comment on a post. Most of what we witness is just innocent content and continue with our day, but amidst the amusing and humorous lives the rude and malicious. We can’t escape it: the mysterious, snarling beast that disguises itself in 140 black and white characters.

Since the early days of humanity, people have been drawn to the nature of violence. Whether by finding it amusing or simply disgusting, there’s something about a little bloodshed, both physical or verbal, that sparks something within us. Why are we this way? Well, in a study about human brain activity by Dr. Jeanna Bryner, it states: “The reward pathway in the brain becomes engaged in response to an aggressive event and that dopamine is involved." We can’t help but sink our teeth into the sinful indulgence that results in the downfall of others. Activities like boxing, football, action movies, and other forms of violence are some of the most profitable types of entertainment because of that added golden factor. Seeing someone assert their power over another in these ways are possibly one of the most rewarding and satisfying things to witness. Social media however, provides us with an even scarier reality because it gives us that power. We’re given a platform to post and view whatever we desire, which comes at higher a cost than any of us could have imagined.

At first it seems pretty electrifying: the idea of having total control in a world of chaos and creating a cute environment with friends, family, and funny videos. Nice comments appear on your photos and you get lots of likes. You follow more people. More people follow you. Somewhere along the way, you discover a comment that’s not so nice, and soon you discover some not so nice posts. You dislike what you see and you comment back. After a while, you can’t stop seeing mean comments and posts and pictures, and all you can do is witness more and more mean responses. That is how they handled it and so must I, you think. This becomes your reality. This becomes your weaponry. Before you know it, the bad fuses with the good; it camouflages. You don’t realize it, but you have just been subconsciously prepared for Social Media warfare.

These characteristics are strangely similar to those of one who describes their experience of being in actual combat. Haywood T. Kirkland, an author, wrote a collection of memoirs from Vietnam War veterans, entitled Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans. One veteran recalls his experience behind enemy lines after being drafted in 1968: “They told us when you go over in Vietnam, you gonna be face to face with Charlie, the Viet Cong. They were like animals, or something other than human,” he explains. “They ain't have no regard for life. They'd blow up little babies just to kill one GI. They wouldn't allow you to talk about them as if they were people. They told us they're not to be treated with any type of mercy or apprehension. That's what they engraved into you. That killer instinct. Just go away and do destruction.”

The internet is an incredibly powerful resource that has an increasingly strong hold on what we perceive. Author Brittany Bostic explains: “Meta-analyses of the unhealthy effects of media-violence have shown that youth who view media-violence on a regular basis are more likely to exhibit antisocial behavior, ranging from imitative violent behavior with toys to criminal violence, acceptance of violent behavior, increased feelings of hostility, and desensitization toward violent behavior.” Society has conditioned us to normalize the presence of violence, and has created a sort of arena where we can exercise these behaviors at our liking. It’s not a necessity for us to carry high powered rifles or grenades on a daily basis. We are not handed A-K 47s whenever we leave our houses; but glued to our eyes and engraved in our brains is a tool capable of destruction just as powerful.

Bibliography

• "There Was No Rules At All: Stories from Vietnam | Haywood T. "The Kid" Kirkland." There Was No Rules At All: Stories from Vietnam | Haywood T. "The Kid" Kirkland. Accessed March 23, 2017. http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/kirkbloodsvietnam.html.

• Bryner, Jeanna. "Humans Crave Violence." LiveScience. January 17, 2008. Accessed March 23, 2017. http://www.livescience.com/2231-humans-crave-violence-sex.html.

• Milford, Aamir Malik, Megztiniai Internetu, Larue, Online Blogging Sites, Valerie, Augusta, and Godsmission. "Does Social Media Perpetuate Youth Violence?" Michigan Youth Violence Prevention Center. December 14, 2015. Accessed March 23, 2017. http://yvpc.sph.umich.edu/social-media-perpetuate-youth-violence/.

Living in a society where violence is accepted, to what degree, mentally, can violence be justified for the better even when you are the doer?

Militarism and Violence  have held a critical device that shaped us into the people we raise today.  Dating back to the biblical ages with David and Goliath and the drowning of Pharaoh's Army, the interrelation of militarism and violence have been a widely accepted motive. It is the key to survival that involve strategies even God himself has used. With this information, I found my next question. How can humans live in society without the use of violence or some form of militarism? The answer being that we can’t. It’s our foundation and what helps keep the world spinning. It is  okay to learn about violence.  By  accepting it , we are able to  determine if violence should actually be reflected upon as a negative tool. I revisited many  articles, in search of perspective of war veterans and children. I figured that veterans come home to expect there to be an uproar of violence while  children are viewed as soldiers who need to be against violence but enjoy it at the same time because implementing it is a great way to blow off steam. It amazes me how contradicting and framed mentally a society as one can think. It can’t be widely accepted for veterans of all ages to be treated with a superb lenses because of their violence by entertainment and smiles. Children who produces violence are only widely accepted when it’s either done in the dark or for the benefits of the great U.S.A.

Young minds can blossom like a butterfly when manipulated.  This is a highly shared  thought between older beings when it come to the youth. The military has enforced propaganda on students to join the fight. At a very young age, I felt that violence was accepted because the schools allowed the army to come in and give us the cool key chains and posters that were dedicated to joining the fight. I’m referring to fight as the war against terror and protecting this country. It is an honor to sign your life over at 18 and fight in a war without knowing exactly why we're fighting  in the war. The lack of knowledge could be a reason for why so many veterans are scared mentally because they would not know what they are getting themselves into. This robe of honor that we give the army sergeants who promote the fight  has turned them into people  not being obligated to share the gruesome details involving the fight. The same obligation we force on the young minds to share every piece of action that happen when they got into a fight over a disagreement. In an interview titled Forced to Fight, Charbonneau explicitly gave  his opinion through an adult perspective by saying “These children live in constant fear of being killed by the troops if they don't obey. Many of them are being tortured and raped. "Unfortunately there are 'advantages' to using children for armed groups: Children are cheap fighters and easy to manipulate. They are often drugged and indoctrinated with propaganda and movies before they are sent out to fulfill their missions The psychodynamics of the TV cartoon or comic book are marvelously simple: children identify with the good guy so that they can think of themselves as good. This enables them to project onto the bad guy their own repressed anger, violence, rebelliousness, or lust and then vicariously to enjoy their own evil by watching the bad guy initially prevail.” The merriam dictionary definition of violence is an intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force. A children’s cartoon expose a hidden truth insides each human. We are all violent by nature. There is negative energy that we all bound up because we don’t want to create violence but have no problem forcing that same energy on someone we feel deserves it.

In order to enjoy being the creator of violence, you will have to believe that you are right. When Justifying a force of violence on someone, the defense story comes up. You want to propose to the witnesses that you were defending yourself or someone else. Though you smiled or cheered because you had the upper hand, we try to forgive ourselves because we hate the feeling of guilt. Not every situation is avoidable and violence can never be justified. However, observing this idea through the lenses of  a soldier, justifying violence can be a coping mechanism in the conscious. In war, soldiers are the suspect, victim, and witness of violence. With a gun in their hands and a big playfield to damage up, the feeling of sympathy for other humans are quickly non existent. Instead, the battlefield becomes an illusion of the mind where every one is the target and as long as there are sounds of screaming and bullets, violence is in the air. In the soldier mind, killing the enemy is the only way to suck the violence out of the air. Though it may sound horrible from the outside looking in, soldiers are taking their repressed negative energies out on the battlefield. The same way children compare themselves to the good superhero and enforce their own repressed violence on the bad guy. In both scenarios, the doer is responding in violence with the help of personal issues.

Militarism and violence should never be enjoyed. We can’t enforce violence with our own personal repression or militarize someone else because they are easy to manipulate. This is what leads to the decline of governments and start of an barbaric nature, both interior and exterior. For a change in society, we must acknowledge the fact that violence and militarism will always be a necessity. We can't go against it or be patriots of its actions. Treat both actions as sentimental principles instead or ways to protect the alpha status. Violence is not something that needs justification when being used in an militarism culture.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Wink, Walter. The powers that be: theology for a new millennium. New York: Galilee Doubleday, 1999.

• "January 31, 2003 ~ Interview: Chris Hedges." PBS. May 10, 2013. Accessed March 23, 2017. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2003/01/31/january-31-2003-interview-chris-hedges/13987/.

• Rollens, Sarah. "Violence in the Bible: Greatest Hits." The Huffington Post. December 26, 2016. Accessed March 23, 2017. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/violence-in-the-bible-greatest-hits_us_5861bd66e4b068764965be0a.

• "January 31, 2003 ~ Interview: Chris Hedges." PBS. May 10, 2013. Accessed March 23, 2017. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2003/01/31/january-31-2003-interview-chris-hedges/13987/.

Nisa Hardin

Advanced essay no. 4

Zero tolerance for the “zero-tolerance policies”

Other than major budget cuts, underfunding and suffering from government ignorance, a majority of inner-city schools across the U.S deal with the growing issue that follows zero-tolerance policies. Ever since a surge in violence and theft within schools before the 1980’s, schools across the nation have made it their top priority to completely divest acts of violence, truancy and general misbehaviour. The differences between then and now, though, are almost too drastic to be comparable. The first and most outstanding thing would have to be the “War on drugs” that Reagan created, which pushed drugs to inner city black and hispanic communities to incarcerate their population as a tactic to suppress the civil rights movement; in turn causing the impressionable public to demonize and alienate the black community and its culture. With significantly diminished property values and quality of life due to open-air drug markets, drug-related murders and numerous home invasion robberies, many communities residing within the inner city were figuratively and in some cases literally left for dead. Too add to the damage, Zero-tolerance policies were created and implemented within the majority of U.S schools.

To this day, research has not been able to report improvements subsequent to the placement of these regulations. Often what happens is that students are penalized to the fullest extent for things that one would think only called for a slap on the hand, but because this isn’t the case many student careers are often thrown away, regardless of the state of their records; more specifically those affected are mainly minorities and students with disabilities. Statistics show that 40% of students expelled from U.S schools each year are black, 70% of school related arrests are black and latino, 25% of minorities are incarcerated within a couple years after they’re 18. Jose Gallego shared his story in an interview about school-to-prison pipelines, illustrating the slippery slope that often follows the penalties of violating zero-tolerance policies: “I’m a highschool dropout. I was supposed to graduate in 2008, but I missed a few days of school because my parents were going through a hard time. They kicked me out of school. So, then I started selling CD’s downtown. I was arrested for selling CD’s, i was locked up, and I got out with a whole different perspective. I had never been in juvenile detention before. I didn’t know what to do. I started selling drugs. Now I am lost. I’ve got a little brother and little sister, they don’t look up to me anymore. I’m a two time convicted felon. It is hard for me to get a job.”

My middle school experience somewhat reflected the zero-tolerance policies unto its students, but fortunately I wasn’t heavily impacted by the consequences that followed the petty and excessive amount of rules that if not followed could jeopardize a student’s access to education. For example though, one of the rules that I will never understand to this day is uniform. To emphasize how seriously staff took wearing the navy blue polo and khaki pants, I’d compare it to the dress codes at SLA. Students are allowed to wear nearly whatever they please so long as it doesn’t reveal entirely too much or suggest something negative or offensive to others. Even when there are incidents where a student may violate these rules, the most they are asked to do is refrain from wearing that item of clothing in the future. At my middle school, Teachers would patrol the halls at exactly 8:40 each morning to examine the uniforms of each student. Wearing any shade of blue other than navy, gym clothes on a non-gym day, or head wear that wasn’t khaki or navy blue were grounds for an unopposable early dismissal or in some cases immediate suspension. The average number of students pulled out of class and taken to the office a day were three or four, and that was just in my grade group.

This, in contrast to the extremely strict zero-tolerance policies in other districts, is virtually nothing. The school-to-prison pipeline is really a classroom-to-prison pipeline. A student’s trajectory to a criminalized life often begins with an unfair curriculum that disrespects children’s lives and that does not center on things that matter. Nearly two decades of a "zero tolerance" mentality has contributed dramatically to a spike in exclusionary discipline that involves racial disparities, and if you ask me all of it seems just a bit too strategic.

Bibliography…

Giroux, Henry. "Racial Injustice and Disposable Youth in the Age of Zero Tolerance."International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. Taylor and Francis Online, 25 Nov. 2010. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.

Norm Stamper / AlterNet. "5 Surprising Consequences of the War on Drugs." Alternet. N.p., 06 Sept. 2012. Web. 19 Mar. 2017.

Buggs, Innis. "Innis Buggs." Politic365. N.p., 15 Dec. 2012. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.

Fuentes, Annette. "Preview of Article:." Rethinking Schools Online. Rethinking Schools, n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.

America makes up 5% of the world’s total population, and 25% of the world’s incarcerated people. With over 2.2 million people imprisoned, it's hard not to wonder how we got to this stage. How did a country that makes up such a small portion of the world, become the producer of over 1/4th of our people’s incarcerated people? Until the 1970s, America’s incarcerated citizens rate was fairly stable throughout the years. What we see today, is a direct result of some harmful policies put together in the 20th century, that Americans are still suffering under today. These policies that we see have been enacted have furthered our problems with imprisonment in modern society.

The 1970s gave birth to what is commonly referred to in mass media as the War on Drugs. This is commonly recognized as when we as a government stopped treating drug addiction as a health issue and started to treat it as a crime issue. Thus, the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act was born. This act ultimately shaped what drugs were considered controlled substances, substances that weren’t, and instilled heavy burdens on those who did not abide by these strict ordinances. According to this act a person found possessing “less than 50 kilograms of marihuana, except in the case of 50 or more marihuana plants regardless of weight, 10 kilograms of hashish, or one kilogram of hashish oil, such person shall…  be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 5 years, a fine not to exceed the greater of that authorized in accordance with the provisions of title 18, United States Code, or $250,000 if the defendant is an individual or $1,000,000 if the defendant is other than an individual, or both. If any person commits such a violation after a prior conviction for a felony drug offense has become final, such person shall be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of not more than 10 years.” In 1970 the number of incarcerated citizens was 357,292. In 1980, that number was 513,900. In just ten years, we had amassed over 200,000 more prisoners at the start of the War on Drugs. However, the incarceration rate didn’t slow down there.

The Ronald Reagan Era introduced mandatory minimum sentencing. By doing this, Reagan introduced harmful sentences for harsh drugs. As we see now, marijuana has proven in recent years to not be as harmful as once portrayed. Mandatory Minimums introduced harmful sentences for marijuana. For instance, if you were thought to have attempted or actually carried out possession with intent to distribute was 10 years. If it was your second offense, you could see 20 years to life in prison for your crimes. So we see that people with either addiction problems or catering to the addictions of others, were forced into harsh sentencing. In the age of harsh sentencing for already extremely regulated drugs, our incarceration rate skyrocketed. The number of incarcerated citizens went from 513,900 in 1980, to 759,100 in 1985. In just FIVE YEARS, we see incarceration has essentially gone up ¼ . According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 1985 of those 759,100, 94% (718,507) were in jail due to drug related crimes. In this case, the mandatory minimum sentences increased the amount of people who were in jail, and the amount of people who there for drug related crimes.

Bill Clinton was elected in the 90s majorly on his support of tougher prison sentencing. One of the major decisions that shaped his career was the 1994 Crime Bill. This bill introduced policies which expanded the death penalty, encouraged states to issue longer prison sentences, and eliminated federal education funding in prisons. The  prison population went from 1,179,200 to 2,015,300 in the year 2000. Bill clinton later admitted that this bill made the problem of mass incarceration much worse. The 1994 Crime Bill perpetuated the problem of mass incarceration, by encouraging prison systems to further the problem of mass incarceration. These bills throughout three decades have furthered the problem that America faced and continue to face today.

Throughout three decades, American policy makers perpetuated the issue of mass incarceration through policies that made it harder for prisoners to rehabilitate or even get out of jail. In the 70s, the beginning of the War on Drugs, Nixon began to crack down on drugs, treating drug addiction as a crime issue instead of a health issue. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan introduced in Mandatory Minimum Sentences. These sentences not only brought people into prison because of minor drug charges, but kept them there for years, sometimes decades. In 1994, Bill Clinton continued these issues of mass incarceration, by encouraging state governments to make longer sentences. Today, we see what these policies have created. A massive prison population, the largest in the world. But we can look at our prison policy history and see where surges in the prison population occurred and that they often coincide with a change in policy.

Bibliography

1. Ec. "Abuse of Drug and Control Act of 1970." Abuse of Drug and COntrol Act of 1970 (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 19 Mar. 2017. https://legcounsel.house.gov/Comps/91-513.pdf

2. Beinart, Peter. "Hillary Clinton and the Tragic Politics of Crime." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 01 May 2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/05/the-tragic-politics-of-crime/392114/

3. "Proclamation by the President of the United States of America." The American Journal of International Law 11.3, Supplement: Official Documents (1917): 152-56. Government Policy Office. US Government. Web. 23 Mar. 2017https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-103hr3355enr/pdf/BILLS-103hr3355enr.pdf

4. Drugs and Crime Facts, 1989. Rockville, MD: U.S. Dept. of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1990. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/dcf89.pdf

5. Caelleigh, Addeane S. "Prisoners." Academic Medicine 75.10 (2000): 999. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p00.pdf

The sky was bright and full of puffy white clouds. The air had a slight smell of rain and it was really humid. This was a pretty warm day for mid-April. I was wearing my favorite blue dress. The waist had blue flowers and I had put on a jean jacket over it so my outfit would be more “school appropriate.” After school, I was walking down the steps into the train station and I heard someone say,

“How old are you?”

There were a bunch of people at the train station, I did not think they were talking to me. Hundreds of conversations were buzzing around on the steps at 15th street. So, I proceed to walk underground towards the Comcast Center. I can feel someone follow me but I’m not sure; so I keep walking and move to the left.

“Ohh you cut me off” A male voice says jokingly.

“Oh, sorry” I muttered trying to sound as nonchalant as possible.

At this point I was focusing on getting near people so I’d feel more comfortable. There was minimal light in this hallway and we were the only people walking. My heart was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, but my mind knew better. My pace quickened a bit as I got further into the underground

“That dress is short!” he chuckles.

At that moment I’m thinking to myself  ‘Are you serious man?’ I was trying to get rid of the thought that this man was following me a block and a half underground. ‘Maybe he’s just going the same way as me!’ was the thought I tried to keep in my head. All I could do is be annoyed that he felt the need to tell me about my outfit and make me feel uncomfortable as he followed me underground.

“How old are you?”

He was now next to my left shoulder tailing about two feet behind me.

“I’m 15!”

I said in a hurry. I was so shocked that I even said the wrong age. I had been 16 for around four months I was just so blank at that moment.

“Oh shit! Sorry, my bad thought you were older.”

He muttered as he walked back in the opposite direction towards the exit.

After, I was astonished. This man really just followed me through the train station. I mean it’s my body I’m allowed to wear whatever I want. No one deserves to be followed because someone is interested in them because of how much skin they show.

There are so many different variables that resulted in me wearing this outfit so I purposely would not get called out or harassed. I tugged at my dress constantly, wore a jean jacket to cover my arms; things that I wasn’t insecure about became things I was adamant about hiding. I know that what I wear does not give anyone the right to harass me. This is the kind of violence I am faced with most often.

The way that this man acted showed me that to him, girls who dress nice can either be one of two things; fashionable or asking for it and fashionable. Nothing about me said that I wanted him to follow me in a dimly lit hallway. I was minding my business yet, I was still street harassed.

Exploring more into why these things happen, I looked into music. Specifically, hip hop music. The lyrics say one thing, but the actions of the artist are another. Young rapper Xxxtentacion is currently in jail for assaulting his pregnant ex-girlfriend. He has a large fan base that often use the hashtag ‘FreeX’ because they believe that he is innocent. Kodak Black is another rapper that was previously in jail for being accused of raping a fan back in February 2016. In the article ‘Xxxtentacion, Kodak Black & Rap’s Ugly Embrace of Sexual Assault’ the author highlights the fans acceptance of these harsh crimes saying that, “#FreeKodak and #FreeX may have started as rallying cries for pre existing fans trying to maintaining their innocence, but in reality, they’ve acted as advertisements to bring in new listeners. Not only are these alleged crimes not slowing down the careers of either artist, they’re boosting their profiles.” Not only does this normalize that kind of behavior, it also perpetuates the fact that the victim may be lying. Whether these accusations are true or not, victim blaming will still happen and fans will still buy their music regardless and this violence will still happen.

This dismissive behavior of sexual assault and harassment becomes a never ending cycle. The article also highlights the fact that, “Of course, that didn’t stop #FreeKodak from taking over the internet, prioritizing a man’s squandered talents over a woman’s accusation that many still aren’t taking seriously. ...which helped him earn the first top 10 hit of his career.” In result of this, music may play a role, but the artist can also have influence. They live without shame and the women never get justice.

I had just gotten off the bus at Phil Ellena street, I was traveling home from school and it was around 7:00 at night. It was cold, dark and damp from the rain that drenched the city earlier in the day The only thing I had on my mind was getting home and starting my homework. The streets lights were on but in reality it wasn’t nearly enough light for me to feel safe on to travel 5 blocks. 5 blocks may seem short but those blocks were long and in the cold they seemed even longer with the few set of eyes staring at me from across the street. The bus pulled off and I started to cross the street heading towards the corner store. There were always guys plastered in front of the store, probably selling drugs or doing some other mischievous act but they always watch me as soon as I get off the bus and usually I’m not intimidated by it but tonight was different.

Walking past the group guys, I made eye contact with the creepiest one. I looked him from his feet up to his head taking in every detail of his appearance. He was a big buff black guy, with a fitted cap on his head. He had a diamond earring in his ear which was gleaming due to  the radiance off of the streetlight. His left hand was deep into the pocket of his jeans and his pants hung low. I was a tad bit afraid because he tried to hit on me once in the store. The moment I caught eye contact I suppose he thought it was his moment to attack. He started calling for me and of course I ignored the first few calls but as he kept calling they seemed to get more and more intense. “You should smile sometimes.” “You have a nice body.” “I be seeing you around girl.” I kept trying to ignore him until his final words to me were “Fuck you too bitch, you ugly anyway.” I almost yelled at him, to say something derogatory back but I realized it probably wasn’t the best thing to do so I just walked away. But why? Shouldn’t I have stuck up for myself or something. Who is he to degrade me like that?

I’ve been facing my whole life like this, that this is the life of a woman. Men who feel as if it is in their power to sexualize you, harass you and make you feel worthless when you don’t agree. I thought women were supposed to be idolized as queen and the bearer of life. I believed that they should be respected and almost put on a pedestal to show how worthy they are but men who are born from a woman’s womb still find a way to disrespect us. Is catcalling, street harassment and the degradation of women considered violence? Yes. It makes women feel vulnerable , neglected, unsafe and attacked.

Going through these experiences, I realized violence falls a lot heavier on women and it is usually implemented by men. Each year over 51% of women which is above the national majority experience partner violence or sexual assault in 2012. In 2003, 119 women died as a result of physical violence in the workplace. 1 in 5 women compared to 1 in 71 men are victims of sexual violence or will become victims of sexual violence in their lifetime and this number has not gone down. We are suppose to honor and protect women, not beat them down with hatred,violence and discrimination. We as a community, not only men but also women need to stand together and demand equal rights and safety to women at home, in public and at their homes. It is our duty as a community and as a nation to provide respect for all women of all shapes and ethnicities.

Sources:

"Facts About Abuse." Facts About Abuse | Abused Women's Aid in Crisis. Abused Womens Aid's In Crisis, n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.

"Violence Against Women In The Workplace." AFL-CIO. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2017.

In today’s society women are victims of  street harassment. Statistics shows that in 1998 about 17.7 million women who are rape or even sexually assaulted, last year about 85% of women experienced stress harassment before turning 17. It also shows female who are the age of 16-19 are mostly likely to get harassed. "He was sitting next to me to my right and as I got up to de-board the bus I had to take a wide stance to get around him and when I did he reached up and grabbed my crotch," said Brittney Gilbert a victim of sexual harassment. “I was on the metro on my way home this evening and a man sat next to me and began to loudly talk about how nice my legs looked. I told him to stop and he wouldn't and I couldn't get out of the seat. He continued to encroach on myspace so I turned my head, and could feel everyone looking at me but not doing anything.” Said another victim that was victimized in harassment.

I personally find this act disgusting and wrong. No woman should ever experience such a horrific act. So the question is “Why don't women stand up for their rights, but what can men also do to stand up for this act?” Jared Marcelle was one of those guy who would catcall other women, but later on in life he realized that it was wrong. He found out that his sister Aleah was being catcalled by construction workers and he didn’t like that at all. He realized that he was being a hypocrite for saying something to those men when he does the same exact things. When someone is sexally assulted or harassed the moment is forever in their minds and their are physically and mentally traumatized. It plays over and over again in your mind and you think back and wonder, maybe I could have done something. If you think about it in today’s society we wish we could do something but honestly we all just sit there as bystanders and do nothing. Did you know that there was a law saying if you see something happening that you know is wrong and or could endanger another you could be arrested. That is called the good samaritan law which holds you accountable for not helping someone in need.

If we can do something to help women as a whole stop being the victims of rape and sexual harassment we should step up. Not all men are bad so we shouldn’t categorize them and put them in one box. The men who are not in the box with rapist and harassers could be the ones who make a difference by joining the marches and the always helping if they see someone in need. They can also shoot for justice and never make the victim feel like it’s their fault. Also, they could make sure that they are aware of how they could make someone feel when they say things that could make them feel uncomfortable.

This is simply why many women shield themselves when walking down a city street in broad daylight, or even when boarding crowded public transportation. Why? Because many women, regardless of age, weight, or appearance, say they've heard something along the lines of "Hey baby, you want some of this?" or "I like what I see" or "nice ass." It’s not okay to make women feel unsafe in their own environment. We should make everyone feel safe like they can walk down the street without being harassed.

I recently looked at an article about the sexual abuse and assault against women. It talked about what sexual assault can be and what it is. Sexual assault/abuse could be verbal, visual, or anything that forces someone to join in on unwanted sexual contact or attention. It can occur during anytime even in broad daylight which would be thought to be the most inconvenient but it happens and a lot of the time there are bystanders who don’t do anything. I believe that a lot of the time the person watching thinks that they are glad that it’s not them in that situation. This makes us weaker as a human race because we could change so many things that we know are wrong. So, if we band together as people who know right from wrong put the bad people away, fight for justice, and stop standing by and do something about it.

Citations:

"From online to the streets,." Hollaback You have the power to end harassment Home Comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.

"Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics | RAINN." Victims of Sexual Violence: Statistics | RAINN. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.

"Radio Rookies: Reformed Catcaller Explores Roots Of Street Harassment." NPR. NPR, 23 Aug. 2016. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.

"Sexual Abuse and Assault Against Women." WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.