Racism Lessons Learned Essay - 484 Words

Many things have been shared in this classroom environment. Issues have been studied that have caught the attention of the class and made them consider things that perhaps were not contemplated before. Over the past semester, one series of lessons have stood out to me more than any other. That particular set of lessons revolved around the issue of racism. Racism has taken on a new comprehension within my thoughts and mind over the course of this semester. I had always considered racism a baneful idea and an even more wicked practice. We defined it as a prejudice based upon the color of one’s skin or race. Although laws have outlawed the practice of segregation and racism, we have seen as a class that it is still practiced within a†¦show more content†¦We have seen that racism isn’t confined to the mountains of Tennessee, hills of Alabama, or plains of Mississippi. Racial discrimination is evident in every state and in many peoples. We have come to see that it is not confined to Anglo-Americans, but can affect people from all racial or ethnic backgrounds. Most importantly, this course has allowed us to view this evil from a better understanding. We have been allowed to not only define racism, but to also view the roots and causes of it. We have discussed as a class the consequences that racial intolerance has held upon our society as a whole. In our discussions and lessons about racism, we have learned about great American heroes who have stood up against bigotry. Rosa Parks, who as a young African-American woman who in 1963 refused to give up her bus seat to a white man, ignited a social revolution. Her righteous defiance led to a boycott of buses by African-Americans in Montgomery, Alabama, and also to laws that changed the legal nature of prejudice. We also learned about Martin Luther King, Jr., a man who stood against the tyranny of racial injustice by forming nonviolent protests. His marches, speeches, imprisonments, and even death ushered in the understanding of how important this issue was to our modern culture. I appreciate all that I have learned within this class. It’s not often that classes affect the way we see life. But thisShow MoreRelatedWhy Is Innocence Becomes Experience?1225 Words   |  5 Pagesaware of these types of bias about their own racial or ethnic group, it can affect how they respond to everyday situations.† This shows that Scout and Jem are in a time of their lives when racism will take effect. Not only because of the exposure do they tend to grow up faster, but also because of the lessons they learn from Calpurnia and Atticus. The symbolism of the mockingbird lingers throughout the novel, which is a symbol of innocence. M.E. Gandy writes, â€Å"The novel is of a genre called BildungsromanRead MoreIndifference Essay761 Words   |  4 Pagesstates show indifference by acting and showing racism, intolerance, and discrimination to those that are different from them. Even after everything the United States has been through, they still continue doing what t heir forefathers did before them by being indifferent to these subjects. One of the main ways the United States shows indifference is through the way they handle racism throughout their country. The American people tend to show racism towards people who are not exactly like themRead MoreThe Red Summer Of 19191038 Words   |  5 Pageskilled than the amount of people being killed in the Chicago race riots. Fighting was happening all over our country. We were killing one another because of the hatred towards racism. â€Å"The Red Summer of 1919 refers to a series of race riots that took place between May and October of that year. Although riots occurred in more than thirty cities throughout the United States, the bloodiest events were in Chicago, Washington D.C. and Elaine, Ark.† (Retreived from the About Education website : http://afroamhistoryRead MoreEssay on Racism in the Film Remember the Titans839 Words   |  4 PagesIn the movie Remember the Titans there are many lessons that every person should learn in their life. One of the m ost important lessons is that of racism. In this day and age some people believe that racism is over because there are no longer any slaves, some people believe that there is still racism but that it is ok. I believe that those people would benefit a great deal from seeing this movie. I know that there is still racism, I also know that it is not ok. There is a scene in this movieRead MoreThemes Found in Harper Lee ´s To Kill a Mockingbird843 Words   |  3 Pageschallenges, paradoxes, problems and painful reality of an insecure world.† In Harper Lee’s book, To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper lee sends many messages to the reader. Set in a fictitious town in Alabama in the 1930’s, one obvious theme is racism. However, while racism was the most obvious theme, it wasn’t the only one; other themes included innocence, understanding and growing up. Harper Lee also suggests how a person should react to problems around them. She shows us this through her character JeanRead MoreRacism Is Defined As Discrimination Against Someone Of A Different Race1302 Words   |  6 PagesRacism is defined as discrimination against someone of a different race based on the beliefs that one’s own race is superior (Oxford Dictionary). Racism has existed since the beginning of time, coming to light during slavery in the si xteenth century and the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s. However, racism is still prevalent in today’s society and is a topic that needs to be further addressed and discussed. According to the article, â€Å"Slavery in America† on the website History, slavery beganRead MoreTo Kill A Mockingbird Theme Essay830 Words   |  4 Pagesdisease of racism. The storys narrator, Scout, and her brother Jem run into the â€Å"usual disease† of racism many times throughout the book. Essential themes to the story such as, courage, superstition, and prejudice express the views of both Scout and Jem on racism. The first theme that expresses Scout and Jem’s views on racism is courage. In the beginning of,To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem and Scout are between the ages of 9 and 12. The innocent and young Jem and Scout have not, yet learned the skillsRead MoreCritical Pedagogy And The Reggio Emilia1533 Words   |  7 PagesIt has been formulated and influenced by many psychologists and philosophers including John Dewey and Paulo Freire. Critical pedagogy is an attempt at freedom from oppression through democratic critical thinking. In critical pedagogy the knowledge learned within the classroom should correlate with and not be separated from any social structure, culture, politics, economics or any ideology taking place with society. The idea is, that in order to orchestrate change, individuals must become aware of theRead MoreImproving Awareness Of The Indigenous Peoples And Cultures1478 Words   |  6 Pages Rationale: The lesson sequence targets AITSL Standard 2.4 and affords Indigenous Australian peoples justice by helping to destroy misconceptions about them, their histories and their cultures. Unfortunately, Australian schools have been identified as a major setting of race-based discrimination (Lester, 2000, p.12). However, children and adolescents are at periods of substantial development in cognitive, social and emotional skills when they are at school (Aboud Levy, 2000, p. 270) and schoolsRead MoreKill A Mockingbird : Five Paragraph Analysis1288 Words   |  6 Pagesnovel travels a thin line between a light-hearted narrative of the siblings’ childhood with their single father, a defense attorney named Atticus Finch, and the injustices that arise within their close-knit community. The complexities include extreme racism, a peculiar social hierarchy, and general misunderstandings of certain people within the small town. These are all seen as â€Å"Maycomb ways†, almost as if they are considered facts. Through her writing, Lee conveys an important message that an essential

Mngt 5000 Term Paper Free Essays

MNGT 5000 May 14, 2010 Term Paper There are many issues that companies face every day that could potentially be managed in a different way. The issue that I would like to review is an issue that is in the forefront of the news these days. It is hard to say when there might be some sort of resolution to this issue, based on the size and impact to the environment and economy. We will write a custom essay sample on Mngt 5000 Term Paper or any similar topic only for you Order Now The most recent issue occurred on April 20, 2010. This was when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sunk into the Gulf of Mexico 2 days later. Along with this explosion, there were 11 people reported missing and are assumed dead. The larger problem that British Petroleum has experienced since this explosion is a blow out preventer (BOP) that failed. This failed BOP has caused a horrible oil leak that is gushing from the ocean floor. The initial estimates were that the leak would be around 1,000 barrels or 42,000 gallons per day. This number has since skyrocketed from the initial estimates. As of May 13, this number is now thought to be as high as 70,000 barrels per day, or 2,940,000 gallons. With the amount of oil that is leaking into the Gulf of Mexico from this incident give it the potential to be the worst oil spill in US history. The previous largest oil spill in US history was the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill that occurred on March 24, 1989. As a comparison, the Valdez spill lost 250,000 barrels of oil, or 10,500,000 gallons. It was not until 1992 that the clean up from this spill was completed. From the estimated numbers, the current spill will eclipse the Valdez spill in only a matter of days. Given the fact that the Valdez spill took 3 years to clean up, we can only speculate as to how long it might take to clean up the effects of the Deepwater Horizon. The main problem that BP is immediately faced with is how to control and stop the Deepwater Horizon leak. There have been many suggestions as to what approach they should take. British Petroleum has had to utilize the planning process and try to implement several different strategies since April 22, 2010. While the typical planning process might take several weeks or months, BP had to speed this process up. Their goal is to try and minimize the impact to the Gulf of Mexico and the surrounding environment. Planning is necessary to help drive a structured process for making decisions about the goal they are trying to reach. There are 6 main steps involved in a formal planning process. The first step in the planning process is situational analysis. This first step most likely started for BP on April 20th after the explosion happened. This is when all relevant information about the plan is gathered, interpreted and summarized. For this situation, it most likely included studying past events, the current conditions and trying to forecast future events. The next step in the planning process is to review alternative goals and plans that might have been identified through the situational analysis. A goal is a certain target that is set by a manager that they hope to reach. The alternative goal that BP needs to try to achieve as quickly as possible is to stop the leak that is gushing from the ocean floor. The book Management: Leading Collaborating in the Competitive World outlines a very helpful acronym to ensure you gather certain qualities in the goals you set. The acronym identified is SMART. This stands for Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound. There are parts of this acronym that are a little more sensitive for BP than some of the other pieces. The time bound is the part that sticks out in my mind. The longer it takes to contain the leak from the ocean floor, the larger the impact to the environment and to BP financially. As of May 13, the oil has been leaking from the Deepwater Horizon site for 24 days. It appears that BP has come up with many alternative plans to try and address and contain the oil leak that the failed BOP has created. Next we will review the different plans that BP has established and how some of them have been working so far. A plan is defined as how the management staff plans to achieve the outlined goals. BP has presented several plans that they will use to try and achieve their goal. The first plan that they will try to implement is to lower a containment box over the leak that will then funnel the oil to the surface and into an oil tanker. This will be the quickest option that they can try to put in place to stop the leak. Another option that they will try to implement at the same time is to drill a relief well, but this could take up to 3 months to complete. Once the alternatives have been reviewed, we move to step three which is to evaluate the goals and plan. All of this planning has to be completed in a very tight time frame for BP, because as the time passes, the oil continues to leak. During this step, management will review the advantages and disadvantages of the alternative goals and plan from step 2. The drilling of a relief well has a huge disadvantage due to the time frame. This step also includes prioritizing and potentially eliminating some of the goals. Step 4 is the Goal and Plan Selection. After having reviewed and prioritized the goals in the last step, this is where the decision will actually be made on which goal and plan is most feasible. After the selection has been made, the following step is to implement plans to achieve the goals that have been outlined. As of May 7, British Petroleum has started to implement their plan of lowering a container over the leaking well. Once everything is implemented, the final step is to monitor and control the work that is being done. The container was successfully lowered into place, however ice crystals started to form and blocked the pipe that would deliver the oil to the surface. BP has now had to resort to some of their back up or alternative plans. Some other ideas that have been presented in this process include using a smaller containment dome, shooting junk into the well to clog the hole, and siphoning the oil into a tanker at the surface. With these different plans in place, BP will have to ensure that they have a good strategy if another alternate fails. The definition of strategy is a pattern of actions and resource allocations designed to achieve the organization’s goals. Planning and strategy go hand in hand. BP will need to use some strategic management in dealing with this situation. Strategic management is basically a strategic planning process that has six major steps. The first step is to establish a mission, vision and goals. The mission is short statement that describes the purpose of the organization. The vision is what the organization hopes to accomplish in the future. BP has their company mission and vision statement listed on their site as their values. The sites states â€Å"BP wants to be recognized as a great company – competitively successful and a force for progress. We have a fundamental belief that we can make a difference in the world. We help the world meet its growing need for heat, light and mobility. We strive to do that by producing energy that is affordable, secure and doesn’t damage the environment. BP is progressive, responsible, innovative and performance driven. † The second step in this process is to do an analysis of external opportunities and threats. This includes understanding the different forces that might affect the company’s mission and vision. This is a unique situation for BP, due to the fact that they are trying to live up to their values, while trying to prevent an environmental disaster that could potentially tarnish their name for quite some time. After reviewing external factors, step 3 is to complete an analysis of internal strengths and weaknesses. There are many aspects to an organization that can be reviewed a couple of key parts to be reviewed would be resources available and core competencies. Resources can fall into two categories, tangible and intangible. Steps 2 and 3 provide a good foundation of information for step 4, which is SWOT Analysis and Strategy Formulation. Once the SWOT analysis is complete, there are several different strategies to consider based on the type of business that is in operation. For BP and this situation, I would think that they would need to implement a functional strategy. Once the type of strategy has been decided upon, step 5 is strategy implementation. During this step, BP would need to ensure that the strategy is being implemented efficiently and effectively. Once implemented, this takes us to the final step, which is strategic control. I believe this control will not be in place until the leak has been contained. In this final step, typically there is a system to help support management in evaluating how the organization is doing with the strategy. Overall, BP has an enormous task that they are faced with. It will take good planning and strategy to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. They are faced with having to contain one of the largest oil spills in US history. It is hard to accurately measure the true amount of oil that is leaking from the well; however there are several estimates of how much oil is leaking per day, ranging from 1000 to 70,000 barrels. As of May 13, 2010, BP has had to resort to alternate plans due to their initial attempt failing. It will be interesting to watch the news and see how BP continues to manage the situation. It is almost guaranteed that the government will intervene at some point, possibly by implementing new laws around off shore drilling. We can only hope that the impact to the environment is not too great, but there have already been reports of dead animals and tar balls washing ashore. It is hard to think that there would be no impact with so much oil leaking into the ocean. I still remember the images from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. I can only imagine we will start to see some of the same images in the future from the Deepwater Horizon spill. Let’s hope that BP’s management staff has all the tools necessary to have a strong plan in place to rectify this problem. Bibliography Robertson, C Lipton, E (2010, April 30). BP Is Criticized Over Oil Spill, but U. S. Missed Chances to Act. New York Times. Retrieved May 11, 2010, from http://www. nytimes. com/2010/05/01/us/01gulf. html The Valdez Oil Spill. (n. d. ). Retrieved May 11, 2010, from http://www. exxonmobil. com/corporate/about_issues_valdez. aspx Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. (n. d. ). Retrieved May 11, 2010, from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill Gulf Oil Spill Layers. (n. d. ). Retrieved May 13, 2010, from http://maps. google. com/maps/mpl? moduleurl=http://mw1. google. com/mw-earth-vectordb/disaster/gulf_oil_spill/gulf_oil_mapplet. xmlmapclient=googlehl=en Weber, H. amp; Burdeau, C (2010, May 6). Expedition to contain oil leak begins in Gulf. Associated Press. Retrieved May 11, 2010, from http://www. google. com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gIXWYBTpLtSayJtg41LKXpxSxVPAD9FH9GN80 Resnick-Ault, J. Polson, C (2010, May 11). BP to Try Again to Control Oil Leak as Hearings Start (Update3). Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved May 13, 2010, from http://www. business week. com/news/2010-05-11/bp-to-try-again-to-control-oil-leak-as-hearings-start-update3-. html What we stand for. (n. d. ). Retrieved May 13, 2010, from http://www. bp. com/sectiongenericarticle. do? categoryId=9002630contentId=7005204 How to cite Mngt 5000 Term Paper, Essays

Grade Essay free essay sample

George Washington was the first president Of the united States Of America as well as one of its founding fathers. When he resigned from office and gave his farewell address, he stated three of his opinions that would be very influential in the development of the United States. During that farewell address, he addressed two very important issues. First was that the United States of America should remain in the most neutral position possible when it came to foreign affairs (this would be ignored by latter presidents).Second was that no political parties should be formed within the new government. These were significant statements because they helped to shape the foundation and cultural beginnings of the new American government. In addition to his farewell advice, he informally set the presidential term limit to two terms, a tradition which has been upheld to this day with very few exceptions. (Note: FDA was the only president to hold three terms) These opinions were important to him because he believed that they would enable the people to grow together as one strong, unified nation. We will write a custom essay sample on Grade Essay or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page While his ideals were certainly not held up forever, they allowed us to build up our country fore civil war broke out among the southern and northern states. President Thomas Jefferson was also a very important and influential president because of his strong opinions on creating a unifying domestic policy. His opinions about the power given to the president were also important. In one of his most famous moments he said, Mel are all Republicans, we are all Federalists. This was a very important moment because it demonstrated an emerging American spirit and encouraged one of the ideals instilled by George Washington.By unifying the people of the efferent parties as Americans, he helped to promote a feeling of unity among the states. This was one of the ideals promoted by George Washington when he warned America not to form political parties; its the same issue Of unity, just addressed from a different angle. It also helped to calm the growing distress and conflict between the Republican and Federalist parties. Another very important accomplishment that happened when Jefferson was in office was the Louisiana Purchase. While it was significant because it more than doubled the size of the United States, it was also a source of much debate.In the arguments against Jefferson there were many people who believed that the Louisiana Purchase was unconstitutional. Most prominent was whether the President had the power to spend 15 million dollars on a segment of land without the approval of the people (Congress, etc). His choice to spend the money was important because it basically said, Im the president and I have power. His actions dont directly reflect his stated beliefs in strong state government, but they do illustrate the fact that he often chose the most pragmatic route in his decisions and put the good of the country over his personal beliefsJohn Marshall, the first Supreme Court justice, was a very influential figure because his beliefs and opinions developed and gave power to the Supreme Court and the judiciary branch for the first time. One of the most important contributions he made for the Su preme Court was the concept of judicial review. After the case of Mammary Vs. . Madison, the Supreme Court was given the power to review laws, and court cases in order to determine whether a law or case was constitutional. John Marshall also extended the power of the Supreme Court to cover all matters not explicitly mentioned to be governed in the state.