African American Stereotypes Essay Example for Free

African American Stereotypes Essay A stereotype is a popular belief about specific types of individuals. Stereotypes are standardized and simplified conceptions of groups based on some prior assumptions. African Americans have been perceived to be someone they are not in the media, history, and in everyday life. Although some stereotypes are true, many are harmful and inaccurate. African American stereotypes are generalizations about the behavior of African Americans originated mainly in American culture and derived from how slave owners used to view slaves. African American stereotypes allow someone from getting to know a person their self. If someone has one bad interaction with an African American, they will limit their selves from getting to know how African Americans truly are. They will base every other African American off of that one bad altercation. The most damaging features of African American stereotypes are the influence they have on young African Americans. Young people tend to limit them selves because of stereotypes. African Americans are unaware that they play into and help to reinforce the African American stereotype. They believe that the African American stereotypes imposed upon them, will limit them in life. The stereotype that â€Å"African Americans will complain that the system is set up to prevent black people from attaining certain positions†, is very common. If they accept these stereotypes and believe them they will limit them selves. Barack Obama who holds the highest office in America is a good example of how this stereotype is false. Some stereotypes are set up to be positive, this does not make the practice of perpetuating these African American stereotypes right. At A N University students (African Americans and Caucasians) were asked to give some stereotypes of African Americans. The current African American stereotypes are thought to be criminal, poor, athletic, religious, musically gifted, loud, dumb, lazy, simple-minded, obnoxious, talk with slang, opinionated, and dress urban, wear baggy pants, and have cornrows. Kool Aid , Chicken, and watermelon was also thought to be a specialty meal in their household. They were thought to live in the lower class neighbor hoods, have one parent, multiple siblings, be rather street smart versus ook smart, involved in gangs. When a group of African American children were asked in a local Baltimore elementary school what they wanted to become when they grow up they had many common answers. Many boys wanted to be a professional basketball player, football player, and become a rapper. Few wanted to be doctors, police officers, fire fighters, entrepreneurs, and nurses. Many African American males are thought to be thugs, drug dealers, high school dropouts, deadbeat fathers, janitors, trash man. A thug is someone who is going through struggles, has gone through struggles, and continues to live day by day with nothing for them. † (Tupac Shakur) No young man wants to grow up and become a thug. Tupac Shakur said that the African American trend of sagging pants is an un organized protest. The sagging pants is a part of someone attitude. It is their way to relate. It is a form of character. A young mans father may not sag his pants but, he may see his idol sagging his pants and want to relate to or admire him. Morehouse professor Bryan T. Marks held a panel at Morehouse College about African American stereotypes. He said that there are more black men enrolled in jail rather than jail. He also stated that African Americans are the most religious, but most likely to get a divorce. There are more black men in jail and prison than in college, but there are more college-age black men in college than in jail and prison. Statistics show that there were an estimated 791,600 black men in jail and prison in 2000 and a count of 603,032 in college in 1999. The more reliable U. S. Census Bureau reports were that 816,000 black men in college in 2000. When people think of black men in jail they use the entire age range of black males when making these comparisons. The age range for college-going males is generally 18 to 24, not the 18 to 55 (and up) range of the jail and prison population. Viewed this way, the ratio of black men in college compared with jail and prison is 4-to-1. Black slang is a form of informal spoken language whose origins are most often associated with African Americas. Slang is a way for young African Americans to express themselves. Many other races copy their expressions because they think it is cool. Some commonly used terms are words such as; gangsta, bling, grills, hang, hood, benjamins, dopes, aight, holla, crib, playa, roll up, straight, yo, and shawty. The Stereotype that Black women have bad attitudes is very common. In fact, it’s been around so long that it has earned the name, Angry Black Women Syndrome. Do Black women have attitudes? My guess is that most black women would fall into the unique personality type. That is a person characterized as quiet, determined, independent, serious, and interested in trying to better her self. â€Å"The idea that Black women are a species of neck rolling, lip smacking, finger snapping, ball busting sub-humans come from? People, who have no contact with Black women outside of retail shopping, see Black women going off on their husbands, boyfriends, kids, co-workers, even bosses with no constraint, remorse, or respect for authority and societal norms on sitcoms, talk shows, reality shows, news clips and even commercials. â€Å"

Love Relationships of Children of Divorce Essay -- children, therapy, p

Millions of divorces are granted each year. Children whose parents divorced are more likely to divorce themselves, maintain poorer relations, and report being generally less happy with their lives (Brown 1999). Over 25% of all women will divorce within 10 years time, and a third of all first marriages disrupted within 10 years. Guldner and O'Connor (1991) said that â€Å"where possible, group therapy for dealing with problems of children of divorce is the treatment of choice†. Group therapy with kids focuses on helping them to feel like they're not alone, connect with and learn from others, receive peer validation and support, and normalize experiences (Gladding, 2005). Psychoeducational and counseling groups in schools and community agencies have been a way of giving treatment to children of divorce (Delucia-Waack & Gellman 2007). Psychoeducational and counseling groups for children of divorce have focused on dealing with the reality of the situation, as well as the feelings produced by it. Goals have been identified for these groups (DeLucia-Waack, 2007). They are to: help children gain a clear picture of the divorce process through discussion, normalize common experiences and feelings, provide a safe place to talk about concerns, help label, understand, and express feelings about the divorce, develop new coping skills, assist children in reality testing, and plan for the future. Typical interventions include: discussion of words and situations related to divorce, drawing and talking about families and support persons, learning ways to externalize feelings, and role plays applying new skills to specific divorce-related situations (DeLucia-Waack, 2001; Gladding, 2005). While these groups are often used in schools, the research regar... ... B. J. (1987). Children's understanding of the simultaneity of two emotions: A five-stage developmental acquisition sequence. Developmental Psychology. Hilliard, R. E. (2001). The effects of music therapy-based bereavement groups on mood and behavior of grieving children. Journal of Music Therapy. Kovacs, M. (1992). The Children's depression inventory manual. Multi Health Systems, Inc. Kurdek, L. A., & Berg, B. (1987). Children's beliefs about parental divorce scale: Psychometric characteristics and concurrent validity. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. Reynolds, C. R., & Richmond, B. O. (1985). Revised children's manifest anxiety scale. Los Angeles: Western Psychological Services. Shechtman, Z., DeLucia-Waack, J. L., Gerrity, D., Kalodner, C., & Riva, M. (2004). Handbook of group counseling and psychotherapy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Political Aspects of Lord of the Flies

The â€Å"Lord of the Flies† is an allegorical novel by Nobel Prize-winning author William Golding. It was Golding’s first novel, and was published in the year 1954. Even though it was not a grand success at the time selling fewer than 3,000 copies in the United States throughout 1955 prior to going out of print it went on to turn out to be a bestseller, and mandatory reading in various schools and colleges. It was adapted to film in 1963 by Peter Brook, and once more in 1990. The title is a reference to Beelzebub from the Hebrew name Baalzvuv ב× ¢Ã—Å" ×â€"בוב, and said to be a synonym for the Devil. Lord of the Flies explores the dark side of humankind, the savagery that lies beneath even the most civilized human beings (Faber School Editions, 1962). Golding planned this novel as a tragic parody of children’s adventure tales, demonstrating humankind’s intrinsic evil nature. The author presents the reader with a chronology of events leadi ng a group of young boys from anticipation to disaster as they try to survive their unsupervised, uncivilized, isolated environment until rescued.In the middle of a nuclear war, a group of British boys discover themselves stranded without adult supervision on a tropical island. The group is generally divided into the â€Å"littluns,† boys more or less the age of six, and the â€Å"biguns,† who are among the ages of ten and twelve. Primarily, the boys try to form a culture comparable to the one they left behind. They select a leader, Ralph, who, with the advice and support of Piggy considered as the intellectual of the group, made every effort to set up rules for housing and sanitation. Ralph furthermore makes a signal fire the group’s first priority, hopeful that a passing ship will see the smoke signal and save them. A chief challenge to Ralph’s leadership is Jack, who as well wants to lead. Jack orders a group of choirboys-turned-hunters who sacrifice t he responsibility of tending the fire so that they can partake in the hunts. Jack draws the other boys gradually away from Ralph’s influence for the reason of their natural attraction to and fondness toward the adventurous hunting activities indicating violence and evil.The conflict between Jack and Ralph, and the said forces of savagery and civilization that they correspond to is exacerbated by the boys’ literal horror of a mythical beast wandering the island (Traister, Rebecca 2005). One night, an aerial battle takes place above the island, and a casualty of the battle floats down with his opened parachute, eventually coming to rest on the mountaintop. Breezes occasionally inflate the parachute, making the body seem to sit up and then drop forward again. This sight alarms the boys as they mistake the dead body for the beast they fear. As a result to this panic, Jack forms a splinter group that is ultimately joined by all but a few of the boys. The boys who join Jack are tempted by the protection Jack’s ferocity appears to provide, as well as by the prospect of playing the part of savages: putting on camouflaging face paint, hunting, and presenting ritualistic tribal dances. Ultimately, Jack’s group in fact slaughters a sow and, as a present to the beast, puts the sow’s head on a stick.Of all the boys, only the mystic Simon has the guts to discover the real identity of the beast sighted on the mountain. Subsequent to witnessing the death of the sow and the gift made of her head to the beast, Simon starts to hallucinate, and the staked sow’s head turns out to be the Lord of the Flies, reporting to Simon what he has previously suspected: The beast is not an animal on the loose but is concealed in each boy’s psyche. Weakened by his dreadful vision, Simon loses consciousness. Recovering later that evening, he struggles to the mountaintop and discovers that the beast is merely a dead pilot/soldier. Trying to get the news to the other boys, he slips into the tribal frenzy of their dance. Perceiving him as the beast, the boys beat him to death.Soon just three of the older boys, including Piggy, are still in Ralph’s camp. Jack’s group takes Piggy’s glasses to begin its cooking fires, leaving Ralph incapable to sustain his signal fire. When Ralph and his small group approach Jack’s tribe to ask for the return of the glasses, one of Jack’s hunters releases a big boulder on Piggy, killing him. The tribe captures the other two biguns prisoners, leaving Ralph on his own.  The tribe undertakes a manhunt to look for and kill Ralph, and they begin a fire to smoke him out of one of his hiding places, generating an island-wide forest fire. A passing vessel sees the smoke from the fire, and a British naval officer appears on the beach just in time to save Ralph from definite death at the hands of the schoolboys turned savages.Golding uses many symbolisms in The Lord of t he Flies.   The whole book is symbolic of the nature of human and society generally as the island turns out to be a society metaphorical to society as a whole and the chase at the end of the book symbolic of the war.   A symbol Golding uses all through the book is the conch.   It symbolizes authority and order.   The person holding the conch had the supremacy, and it formed order and rules since when it was called, everybody had to listen.   One more symbol is Piggy’s glasses.   It represents knowledge and insight.   While Piggy had them, he was able to provide advice to the group, such as that of the signal fire.   It was the glasses that produced the fire.   On the other hand, after the glasses are broken, the group loses what insight they had.   The war paint is furthermore a symbol.   It represented the rejection of society.In a way, when they put on the disguise of war paint, they took off the mask of society and exposed their true inner selves whic h were savage. Human condition is depicted all the way through the key characters in the novel. Every one embodies a strong-minded social stereotype which will be later on profoundly explained. This existentialist dissatisfaction is an aspect which darkens human kind similar to other factors such as the type of fear which is dealt throughout the book, being this one of the key causes of chaos. Those parallelisms, being several of them adventured, are valid too revealing two questions which take far beyond this point: to what extent is brutality a mere consequence of circumstances or a genuine feature in mankind.Unfortunately anarchy conquers order. This is the outcome for the reason that Golding believed that government is an unproductive way to maintain people together. No matter how logical or reasonable, government will in the long run have to give in to the anarchical demands of the public. This book traces the faults in society to the faults in the human being (Baker, James R. 1970).   Golding says that every person has in evil inner nature inadequately covered by society.   If the society is taken away, then the inner nature comes out and disorder and lawlessness erupt. Every person has an evil nature and is able of committing heinous crimes.   In this book, practically each person fell to the level of Jack’s savagery with the exception of those that were able to notice that evil such as Ralph, Simon, and Piggy. The beast is human.   In the start of the book, a littlun told the others that he saw a beast in the jungle opening everyone’s fears.   On the other hand, it turns out that the beast is in fact a parachutist and human, symbolizing that what people should be scared of is not some evil creature, but their own selves and other humans.Baker, James R. â€Å"The Decline of Lord of the Flies.† In South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 69, Autumn, (1970).Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Capricorn Books, G.P. Putnamâ⠂¬â„¢s Sons, (1954).Lord of The Flies, William Golding. Faber School Editions, (1962).Traister, Rebecca, â€Å"Reading â€Å"Lord of the Flies†Ã¢â‚¬ , (2005).

48 Inspiring, Wise, and Witty Quotes to End Your Emails

Your email signature—an optional footer you can add to every message you send out—is an ideal place to put your name and contact information, so people can easily reach you in a variety of ways. If youre using personal email, its also a field where you might add a quote—a few short words that are inspiring, wise, or humorous to enlighten the reader. The remarks of famous writers, politicians, activists, and entertainers can serve as personal statements in the digital age. Find a quote that speaks to you and then use it as a sign-off at the end of your emails. Inspiring Quotes These quotes from Maya Angelou to Confucius to Mark Twain were handpicked to help the seeker in all of us—to keep us bounding forward even during the most challenging days. Maya Angelou We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated. Walter Bagehot The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. Simone de Beauvoir Change your life today. Dont gamble on the future, act now, without delay. Josh Billings To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while. Confucius The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large. William Hazlitt The more we do, the more we can do. Gary Player The harder you work, the luckier you get. Jim Rohn Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. Eleanor Roosevelt With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts. Charles R. Swindoll Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it. Rabindranath Tagore You cant cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Mark Twain The secret of getting ahead is getting started. Wise Quotes An email signature can be a place to share a nugget of wisdom, something that expresses your personal values or outlook on life. If you work in education, you might choose a quote about teaching or learning. If youre a writer or a painter, you might choose a quote about the power of art. Bill Clinton There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. Paul Ehrlich To err is human, but to really foul things up you need a computer. Euripides Friends show their love in times of trouble, not in happiness. Robert Frost In three words I can sum up everything Ive learned about life. It goes on. Gandhi There are limits to self-indulgence, none to self-restraint. Khalil Gibran The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind. Omar Khayyam Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life. Thomas La Mance Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans. Jawaharlal Nehru Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will. General George S. Patton Jr. Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. Pablo Picasso The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls. Josiah Royce Thinking is like loving and dying. Each of us must do it for himself. Rumi Let the beauty of what you love be what you do. Bertrand Russell No one gossips about other peoples secret virtues. George Sand There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved. William Shakespeare A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. Robert S. Surtees It is better to be killed than frightened to death. Oscar Wilde Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. William Butler Yeats Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. Witty Quotes Email signatures dont have to be serious. If youre known for being lighthearted and making people laugh, you might be happier using a funny email signature, such as a quote from a comedian. A snappy one-liner or a clever zinger can leave the person on the other end with a smile—just be sure you know your audience well. Fred Allen I dont want to own anything that wont fit into my coffin. Woody Allen I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose. Louis Hector Berlioz Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately, it kills all its pupils. Red Buttons Never raise your hands to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected. George Carlin The day after tomorrow is the third day of the rest of your life. Lawrence Ferlinghetti If youre too open-minded, your brains will fall out. Carrie Fisher Instant gratification takes too long. Benjamin Franklin Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, and half-shut afterward. Fran Lebowitz Youre only as good as your last haircut. P.J. ORourke Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely. Charles M. Schulz I never made a mistake in my life. I thought I did once, but I was wrong. George Bernard Shaw Youth is wasted on the young. Lily Tomlin Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain. Mark Twain Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow. Mae West I generally avoid temptation unless I cant resist it. Steven Wright If at first you dont succeed, then skydiving definitely isnt for you.