Working on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a time to spend with family. A time to spend with friends. Black Friday is a time of capitalism and consumerism. However, lately stores have been opening their doors earlier and earlier for the past years; meaning that more employees must spend their Thanksgiving Day away from family to deal with enraged shoppers.

According to USA Today a number of retails chains such as Target, Walmart, Macy’s, Best Buy, and Toys R Us are opening on Thanksgiving Day. Other retailers have decided to open on Friday (The Home Depot, Barnes & Noble, Hobby Lobby and Costco).

Everyone deserves quality time with friends and family, especially for those who work in retail with unpredictable hours. One Kmart daughter of a Kmart employee, Jillian Fisher, asked Kmart to allow workers to take the day off for Thanksgiving if they wanted to. However, one Kmart employee stated their manger told them, “Everyone must work Thanksgiving and Black Friday. No time off.” Employees have no choice and no say in the matter. International Business Times stated that in a report done by an Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll more than fifty five percent of employees working on Thanksgiving are being forced to work shifts.

We as consumers do not understand how much retailers and other workers sacrifice in order for us to enjoy buying luxury products that are on sale.  However, retail employees are not the only ones who must work on Thanksgiving Day. Jacob Davidson recently posted on article with statistics from an Allstate/National Journal poll stated one in four Americans who will work on either Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, or New Years Day. The twenty five percent of people who work on holidays make it possible for us to enjoy our time off. These workers included doctors, firefighters, policemen, and a retail techie.

We as consumers take Thanksgiving lightly. We’ll be standing in line for cheap electronics and other merchandise; stealing time away from the employees who work on Thanksgiving Day but want to be at home with their families. We should spend time with our friends and families creating memories which last a lifetime instead of purchasing material objects we’ll use for a couple of years and throw away after getting the latest model.  

Common Core

Common core was adopted in 2010, and was created without the input of educators. It is sweeping the nation, almost as if it were a zombie apocalypse, with many states agreeing to enforce this new method of teaching in their schools. According to The Common Core State Standards, common core is suppose to "clearly demonstrate what students are expected to learn at each grade level…" with " …the best elements of standards-related work in all states and other countries to date."

However, in some states common core showed no sign of improvement in test scores what so ever. In fact the scores of students decreased. The statistics in the US News shows the second round of test based on Common Core teachings. In New York thirty-one percent of students gained the title of proficient in English language arts. Before Common core was set in motion, there was a three percentage point difference between whites and Hispanic eight graders on the English proportions of the tests. When Common Core was introduced to students the gap grew to be twenty two points. Why should Common Core continue if the test scores of students do not improve, but decrease dramatically?

Its not just New York which has faced problems of decreasing test scores after they instituted Common Core. Each time a state has given its students one of the two Common Core tests, students' scores were below their average.  The Common Core standard is not fair because it requires critical thinking and mastery of topics. You cannot expect an English learner to analyze a passage with depth and understanding like a native speaker.

This picture above shows the traditional mathematical way of solving a problem, and below shows the Common Core way.

When Common Core first began forty-five states and the District of Columbia agreed to test this new method of learning which the government provided money for. However, according to CNN, 10 states have already dropped Common Core, with more states likely to follow in their example.

Capital Punishment

I never agreed with the death penalty. I have always seen it as a cruel and inhumane process of bloodshed, creating an everlasting cycle of murder, especially after I have done research on this particular topic.

It absolutely horrified me when I read a CNN article online. The article states that the most executions in 2012 were done in China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the United States of America. This makes America the only nation out of the top five counties with the most executions to be in the developed world. The article also stated that since capital punishment was reinstated by the United States Supreme Court in 1976, 1,386 people have been executed and as of January 2014 there are 3,070 people in prison waiting to be executed. However, out of these 3,070 people four percent of them are innocent according to The Guardian.

Another continuous problem with capital punishment in the United States of America is racism. An article by the New York Times found that black defendants were 1.7 times more likely to be executed than a white person and murderers of white people were 4.3 times more likely to be executed. Statistics show whites make up 56 percent of the executions, blacks make up 34 percent of the executions, Hispanics make up eight percent and other ethnicities make up two percent of people executed in the United States.

However, the methods of execution is the most evident and major problem with the death penalty. There are many ways of executing a death row inmate, lethal injects are used the most- in 87 percent of executions, electrocution is used in 11 percent of executions, gas chamber in 1 percent, hanging in 0.5 percent, and a firing squad in 0.5 percent of executions. From these five different methods of execution, a lot can go wrong. 

According to The New Yorker, in July of this year a man named Joseph Wood was administered a lethal injection that was supposed to kill him. However, shortly after he was given the drugs, witnesses heard Wood grasp for air and he continued to gasp for air for two hours until he died.

The death penalty violated the eighth amendment of Wood and many other inmates who had problems with their execution. It puts the lives of innocent  people at risk and is affected by racism. Capital punishment is supposed to bring justice; not bring a "cruel and unusual punishment".  

Incarceration in America

The incarceration of people in the United States has skyrocketed with approximately one percent of Americans in either a state or federal prison. According to the Washington Post the prison population in America alone is 2.4 million, quadrupling since 1980. The United States is the second highest when it comes to people in jail per capita. In 2012 there were 707 people in prison for every 100,000 residents in America. This means that one out of every 100 American adults is in jail. The issue has gotten so bad that it’s now affecting children. Sesame Street recently created an episode to explain Incarceration with a new character named Alex whose dad is in jail. As they describe why adults go to prison, the friends on Sesame Street try to comfort Alex. 

However, parents being incarcerated isn't the only problem with the criminal justice system. The racial inequality in the system is still evident today. The statistics of Learn Liberty states that whites make up 64 percent of the population in the United States and 31 percent of them in incarcerated.  Hispanics comprise 16 percent of the population and 24 percent are incarcerated. African Americans make up 14 percent of the population and 36 percent are incarcerated, and according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in three black men go to prison in the United States. African Americans are also three times more likely to searched during a traffic stop, and police are four times more likely to use violence against an African American. 

The Bureau of Justice also conducted a study of sexual harassment in prison. The results were overwhelming. Nearly 10 percent of prisoners are sexually abused, and of the 8,763 victims of sexual harassment between 2009 and 2011, 49 percent of them involved prison staff members. Sexual abuse and other problems with the criminal justice system brings thoughts of suicides in the minds of many prisoner, making suicide the leading causes of death. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 185 prisoners committed suicide in 2011.  

The United States is supposed to be a land where all people no matter their ethnicity, race, religion, or gender are equal. The statistics of incarceration prove there is a biased in the criminal justice system, and based on the information the inequality of  prisoners today, this biased will not disappear. Prisons are meant to a give criminals a  deserving punishment. Prisons  are supposed to affect the lives of inmates in a positive manner. Prisons aren't supposed to end lives. 

Learn more about the Mass Incarceration in the US here. 

Community Post #1

Humans possess a diverse range of emotions from sympathy to love. However, the opinions in which we hold so strongly and dearly in our hearts, affect our perspective on certain ideals and especially how we view other human beings based their on race, ethnicity, religion, and gender. In The United States of America, were we pride ourselves on equality- where everyone is treated fairly and one can grasp opportunities no matter who you are physically- is still just a dream in a fairy tale. This world holds racism and prejudice; this is our reality.

Discrimination against women has always existed, although it is not as obvious in today’s society; it continually lingers throughout the world, even without us knowing or sensing it. In the article “Exposing Hidden Bias at Google,” by Farhad Manjoo states overwhelming evidence men are abundant in Google, and women barely have an existence inside of these large tech companies. Google’s engineering employees make up 83 percent of its workforce. Google has tried to counter this problem with the solution of workshops and sponsoring programs to increase the number of women who are in the field of technology, improving the ratio of men and women working in the technological industry.

Although there may not be gender equality between men and women in the tech industry, the amount of women in there today is a massive improvement compared to the past. Today, there are many different opportunities for women in technology and engineering such as special scholarships exclusively for women entering the industry and programs for teenage girls who have an interest in the field. For example, Cyber Patriot, a team in the Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFJROTC) program, categorizes all girl teams into a separate group.  Through increasing opportunities and the demand for women engineers, the percentage of women in the tech industry will slowly increase.

Women have all the mental capabilities and are able to accomplish tasks men do, including working as engineers in the tech industry. Although there is a small percentage of a woman in this field, I believe as time passes more women will strive to become engineers in the future as there is an increase in opportunities and a high demand for women engineers. Prejudice and racism is never going to disappear, but when we are aware of our own biases, we are able to correct ourselves, and treat people equally. The chooses we make which affect ourselves and those around us can turn the American dream into a fantasy or reality.