VACATION ASSIGNMENT! Due Monday February 27th

We have been learning about Non-Violent Resistance as a means of social change. We have studied the philosophy of Henry David Thoreau and Gandhi, as well as the words of Martin Luther King Jr. Your job this week is to investigate the Occupy Wall Street Movement--a modern-day act of protest happening right now in many parts of the country. Learn all you can about the protest, and then determine if it could be deemed an effective act of Non-Violent protest. In a comment to this post:  Check out this website for more information. 

• LIST 5 things you've learned about the protest (Think W's here...Who is protesting? What are they protesting? Where?). 
• Next, based upon what you know about the tenets of non-violent resistance (non-violent demonstration, exposing of injustice, raise public consciousness, and forcing of government intervention) determine if you think the Occupy Wall Street movement is adhering to those tenets. 

NAACP Warns Black and Hispanic Americans could lose the right to vote

In the article I read from The Guardian, it basically said that the government was thinking about taking away voting rights for the minority groups in America. Mostly blacks and hispanics .One of the ways they were thinking of taking away those rights is by making everyone bring a photo ID to the voting booth. That would hurt a lot of people because as of right now it costs zero amount of money to vote, so that means anyone who has a social security number can come and vote. If the government makes it so a person has to bring a photo ID than many people who can not afford to buy the nessesities of life will not be able to vote. This is a problem because this will also hurt many white people who are poor, so our own government will be taking away voting rights for more people than they would hope, but it will eliminate the ones they were aiming for to begin with. The article also stated that the states of Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, and Virginia are not allowing anyone to vote if they have convicted a criminal offense. In Florida even when someone has finished their time in jail they have to wait an additional five years before they can register to be a valid voter again. This is keeping many minoritys the right to vote because many of the felonys that are commited in Florida are by black Americans. So they are forcing black americans to wait a minimal of five years to vote which will make them miss on vote because a president can only stand on office for four years. So after understanding this topic do you agree with the government taking away voting rights for minority groups? What is another way that the government could limit the number of voters per election?

The U.S. census shows that a majority of black people are moving from the city to the suburbs for better jobs and safer environments. Some people are concerned with the shift in blacks political power. Do you think this is true?

Byron Thomas Says He Doesn't See Racism Just Southern Pride

Sunday, January 29, 2012

In the past we know racism was between the North and the South, The white people always seemed to have the power over the Blacks. Byron is 19, a freshman at S.C College, he is a proud southerner. He was asked to take down a Confederate Flag that he had put up in his dorm room because it had got a lot of complaints. He said " I know its weird because Im black but in this flag, I see pride, respect not racism. Its ignorance that gave the flag the bad name like the KKK. He ended up having to take the flag down. His roomate claimed he was one of the nicest people he knew. No matter what you say or do there is going to be someone who will feel offended. Byron felt violated to the racist code. To prove a point he asked if he could put up an American Flag and they said he could so he said  "their could be Native Americans who would get offended because of the American Flag so what would the difference be?"  Is it fair that he could not hang up an confederate flag IN his dorm room but could hang up an American Flag?

-Kendra Boyle