“Why Does Racism exist?” essay

Racism, a prominent issue in our social world, can be defined as a discriminative or prejudice view or action against a specific social culture/group. Why does it still occur in our “structured societies” we have today? In fact there are many reasons as to why it does; although, it ultimately transpires from how people were raised and their historical backgrounds. Since mankind had stepped foot on this earth there has been a sense of fear from unknown entities, a fear that makes people act against their morals and values. People are generally scared from anything that is different so, like animals, humans only naturally assume that something that looks different from what is “normal” is an automatic threat. In the course of time, people would group together in their own religions, cultures, beliefs, living preferences etc. creating great conflicts for when these groups would meet because the fear of their differences. This escalades and is carried on through the way these people raise their children, who grow up and repeat the same process. This process can be near unbreakable because it is difficult to change one’s mind. The everyday person is too proud to admit being wrong.

Racism is just one strand of discrimination and leads to an endless amount of effects. These effects impact the targeted group in ways that can lead to very destructive results in the social structure of our world. This is why it is wrong, and a backward way for humankind to think. There is biologically no difference between any person that walks on this earth unless they can prove that they’re of another species. What people need to do, instead of escalading conflicts, is find ways to eliminate or block these unbalanced thoughts. The only way to accomplish so is to control an open mind and allow one’s self to accept criticism from others.

Highway of Tears

The Highway of tears is a highway in British Columbia and is also known as Highway 16 (yellowhead highway). It runs west from Prince George to Prince Rupert. It is known as the “Highway of Tears” because there have been over 40 unsolved murder cases (8 alone in 2009 so far). The Highway has been a problem since the early 90s but has only really reached mainstream news in the last few years. Here is an example of an article from cbc new:

List of Highway of Tears’ Doubles:

Updated Fri. Oct. 12 2007 10:18 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

The RCMP on Thursday doubled the list of women who have gone missing on a notorious British Columbia road known as the “Highway of Tears.”

Until now police believed nine young women died or went missing along Highway 16, a road which stretches from Prince Rupert to Prince George.

But police now believe the number is actually 18.

The first name on the list is Gloria Moody. Moody was killed in Williams Lake in 1969. Over the next four decades, police say there have been 17 other victims on the highway.

The crimes have left residents who travel and live in towns along the highway fearing for their safety.

One resident told CTV News in Vancouver that “It’s very frightening that a predator could be out there for that length of time preying on these women without anyone standing in the way.”

There has long been fear and suspicion that a serial killer is behind the murders and missing women.

RCMP Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre doesn’t believe one person killed all of these women. But he said police are open to “any, any possibility.”

All of the victims were young and many of them were Aboriginal. Some were hitchhiking along the highway. Travellers along the highway say they’re afraid to pick up any hitchhikers, no matter how young. They say they’re torn between wanting to keep hitchhikers safe and their own safety because they don’t know who may be wanting a ride.

The investigation has long been criticized. Protests have been held accusing police of not doing enough, and aboriginal groups have complained more young women have gone missing on Highway 16 then investigators were admitting.

Police say they weren’t pressured to change the list because of criticism from the community. They note that the new names were added after more than 200 files were reviewed.

Police will not reveal if they have any suspects. They have said they are not releasing all of the information that they have.

“There are things we know that we don’t want the the persons or person responsible to know. I can tell you we know a lot more than we did a year ago,” said Lemaitre.

But 38 years after Moody’s body was found they have made no arrest.

I think that the Highway of Tears is only reaching media attention lately because of the fact that many people just don’t think about this kind of issue. I think what needs to be done to help stop these problems on the highway is to make more people aware of the fact that this issue is prominent. By creating awareness, hopefully people will learn to not get them selves caught in a situation that many of these other girls have been caught in and it will create hope that this serial killer will give up.

Poverty

What is this groups experience of poverty? (financial hardships, lack of materials, exclusion)

Who is in this group? (ethnicities, ages, genders, locations)

What is the cause of their poverty?

What barriers do they face in overcoming poverty and how can they eliminate it?

From : http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2002/11/04/child_poverty021104.html

The Canadian Council on Social Development released a grim report Monday that details societal damage done by child poverty and what the council calls “persistent poverty.”

Although the number of children without enough to eat has decreased slightly, the new study says families in need are having more trouble escaping from poverty.

Louise Hanvey

• INDEPTH: Measuring Poverty

The council’s sixth annual Progress of Canada’s Children suggests child poverty is deeper and more entrenched in Canadian society.

The report says children in families described as “persistently poor” tend not to be as healthy as other children. Children in poor families do not do as well in school as other children.

Other points:

• Children living in poverty are three times more likely to have a parent suffering from depression.
• Some 300,000 children in Canada rely on food banks every month.
• Children in poor families are much more likely to become runaways.
• Children growing up in poverty are more likely to become foster children.
• Between 1984 and 1999, the average net wealth of the top 20 per cent of couples with children increased by 43 per cent. For families at the bottom of the income scale, net wealth fell by more than 51 per cent.
• Children living in persistent poverty are twice as likely to live in dysfunctional families, and twice as likely to live with violence.

“When we look at the depth of poverty… those numbers aren’t going down in a significant way, so kids are really poor,” said Louise Hanvey, who wrote the report.

In Montreal, the numbers of needy are increasing, said youth worker Tommy Kulczyk.

There are already 1,000 more families signed up for a Christmas hamper this year than last, and two-thirds of them have children under 12, he said.

The report says children who live in communities with plentiful resources – parks, libraries – score better on tests of physical, emotional, social and intellectual development.

In the case of poor children, the opposite is the case. The report cites a study in Edmonton that says poor children worry more about the safety of their neighbourhoods than about lack of food.

“Despite the economic boom of the mid- to late-1990s, too many Canadian families and their children are barely scraping by and are just one problem away from economic disaster,” Hanvey said.

“The fact that so many kids are heading off to school on empty stomachs is not the reality one expects to see in a G-7 country like Canada that is consistently ranked among the best places in the world in which to live.”

Because of issues that revolve around people’s depression, lack of income and family instability, children as mentioned in the article are swept under the thick rug of poverty. This type of lifestyle leads them to act in more depressive and violent ways. The reason why it is so difficult to “destroy” poverty is because of issues like these, because young children are being so affected it will inevitably lead to a repetitive circle. What happens when these poverty stricken children have their own families? What if they do not have the needed support for their families? It will always continue unless Canada, as a nation, does what is needed to end poverty.

Assignment 6 Rights of Children

I think, as a student, that people SHOULD do more to focus on advocating and fighting for the rights of children. There are too many cases where children are forced to work in developing countries for less than a dollar a day or are forced to fight in the violent world of military. If one would take the time to look into these issues more closely, than they, he, she or them will learn to find ways to fight for these hapless children and their personal rights. Children are easily influenced and manipulated, this is the main reason as to why so many fall into these “professions”. Something that our society needs to accomplish is to teach the children to know what rights they are entitled to so that they don’t get caught in these labour or military situations.

Human Rights Violations

According to: http://www.amnestyusa.org/all-countries/angola/page.do?id=1011104

Thousands of families are left homeless in Angola due to forced evictions:

Housing

Amnesty International’s report, Angola: Lives in Ruins: Forced Evictions Continue, documents the forced evictions that has left thousands of families without homes since 2001. Thousands of families were forcibly evicted from various neighborhoods in the Angolan capital of Luanda in order to make room for public and private housing projects. These forced evictions were typically carried out without prior notification or consultation and without due process of law. Nearly all of the evictions were accompanied by excessive use of force. Officials specifically targeted the poorest families who had least access to the means of securing their tenure. Many victims watched as all their possessions were buried in a hole by a bulldozer.

CAMBAMBA II EVICTIONS
On 13 March 2006, members of the National Police and guards from a private security company arrived in Cambamba II with bulldozers and demolished 200 houses. Heavily-armed officers reportedly beat and kicked residents, including a pregnant woman, who then started hemorrhaging.

People still have nowhere to live: “Hundreds of families in Luanda are still homeless,” said AIUSA Executive Director Larry Cox. People are often forced to rebuild a makeshift shelter from the destroyed remains of their previous home.

Concern for the future: A majority of Luanda’s estimated four million inhabitants have no security of tenure and face a serious risk of forced eviction.

I feel that the violation of rights in this case is substantially ill thought. I think that this issue will contribute into making people in the government or people who own private companies think that the people of Angola are worthless. What would have happened if the people refused to leave their homes? They could have been murdered in the bulldozing process and not even be recognized, which is a HUGE human rights violation. Nobody seems to care anymore about who has what rights because people just want to anything they can to survive, whether it be destroying thousands of homes to make money off a company or walk across the street to buy bread.

Personal beliefs and decision making.

Even if i don’t think they do, my values, beliefs and views do impact the world locally and globally. Everyone in our society, including me, takes simple things like running the tap water or running across the street to buy dinner, for granted. I think that in order for a person to know “who” they are, they have to first accept others for who THEY are as well. Also I think that if one learned to value certain things more (like being grateful for dinner or water etc)  it would keep their mind open to learning more about themselves and everybody else in this world. He/she could also learn the impact of a decision that is backed up by personal beliefs or values and learn to take responsibility of the positive or negative outcomes that could occur (whether it being locally or globally). If one does not even acknowledge  the importance of knowing who they are or the effects that they can possess among other people, then that person is not fit to make such important decisions.

“Homophobia hurts everyone”

First off, I think Alex Sanchez’s simple, but authentic words are meant to open the eyes of people who are being affected by homophobia and people who are causing these homophobic issues. Some personal things that I was thinking about is how children are not being taught that being homophobic “hurts everyone”. Even when I was under 5th/6th grade nobody taught me that there was nothing wrong with people’s sexual preferences and often let us students find out for ourselves. I grew up thinking (for no reason at all) that all homosexuals were “wrong” or “bad”. It took me until when I started high school to realize that there are many people who are against homosexuals and have no reason to be.

Situations where young people are not educated on important issues like homophobia can be highly dangerous. Many people will learn that being homophobic is a good thing at a young age and live with the same point of views until adult hood. I think that Social Justice 12 is our school’s first good step to addressing these topics; however, I feel that  there should be  Social Justice type courses available for people of younger ages to help them learn these significant issues as they grow mentally into mature adults.

Workplace bullying victim calls for Alberta legislation.

A former victim of workplace bullying is calling on the province of Alberta to protect employees from being harassed and taunted on the job. Calgary resident Doreen Maruschak is circulating a petition during National Bullying Awareness Week calling for emotional bullying and psychological harassment to be recognized in the province as abuse in the workplace. “There is absolutely nothing out there for victims,” she said. “The prevention and the strategies put out there don’t help us when we’re in it already. We do need some sort of recourse to show that this is not acceptable, whether it’s reinstatement of work, or counselling on the victims’ part or the bullies’ part, or depending on the severity, compensation.” Quebec and Saskatchewan already have similar laws in place. Maruschak said she was harassed at a retail job by two co-workers. “They would whisper, they would laugh and they would giggle,” she recalled. She was with a customer once when the two held up some underwear, asking her if she left it behind. “I felt like crying. I am sure I had tears in my eyes at the time. And I could hardly wait to get out of there,” she said. Maruschak said she reported the incidents to human resources, but the abuse didn’t stop, and eventually she quit. After hearing from others who were being taunted or harassed at work, she decided to circulate a petition urging the government to protect victims of workplace bullying. Stephen Diotte, a spokesman for the human resources firm Deloitte, said a provincial law would give employers the guidance they need to address this issue, which can hurt a business’s bottom line. “When your employees don’t get along for whatever reason, whether it’s amongst themselves or with your customers … that’s going to affect productivity.”

source: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2008/11/21/workplace-bullying-alberta.html

Stick, Stones and Bullies..

It happens again and again. A young person, usually a boy, usually a teenager, but not always – sometimes just a kid, sometimes a girl – is driven to suicide by schoolyard bullying.

A solid scientific base to study bullying is still in its beginning. After years of limited anecdotal studies around the world, in early March 2005, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada announced a $1-million grant to Hamilton’s McMaster University to study how to tackle bullying and make it stop.

Even if someone takes measures against bullying, that, too, can be controversial. Also in March 2005, in the small, rural town of Langruth, in Manitoba, a teacher at an elementary school ordered boys between eight and 10 to wear hockey helmets with phrases such as “Loser,” “I tease people” and “I’m stupid because I am a bully,” after another child said he was being picked on. Three of the boys were then made to sit through an exercise where other students criticized them for being bullies.

While the parents of one of three accused bullies objected, one saying it was an isolated incident, and another parent said the issue was misconduct by the teacher, not bullying, a large number of the townspeople in Langruth showed up to support the teacher.

That incident came just days after 16-year-old Gary Hansen, hanged himself in Roblin, Man., after persistent bullying at the local Goose Lake high school. Pamela Hansen, the boy’s mother said they had kept him out of school for two years because of earlier bullying. He had returned to school and his marks were up. Then Hansen was taunted by other students for the looks of a 20-year-old snowmobile that he had restored, and then a few days later he was swarmed by six other teenagers.

Some of the bullies taunted Hansen by saying he was gay, a common tactic among teenage bullies, and it doesn’t matter whether or not the victim is actually gay.

In 2004, two suicides shocked the small town of Canora, Sask., population 2,200, 300 kilometres east of Saskatoon. Travis Sleeve, 16, shot himself in December 2004 after what his mother, Carol Sleeve, called 2½ months of consistent harassment,which included assaults, “vulgar vandalism,” and students throwing rocks at him and defacing his car.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/bullying/

Bullying is an issue in our world that is very discriminative and controversial. It has been around since mankind has pretty much existed and, as being a past victim of it, I feel that it can create a substantial impact on one’s life. When I was younger with my own issues, I found that certain people treated me differently and it all revolved around the way that I looked to them. People in our society (even you) make judgments based solely on the appearance of other people and unfortunately, I think that these judgments and harassment’s will never “stop”. The only thing that us humans can do is find ways to make these actions noticed and prevented (I.E, a Social Justice class).