Ronald Takaki a renowned pioneer in the field of ethnic studies has over the years authored numerous books on diversity in American society. As a grandson of Japanese immigrants who became the first black studies professor at UCLA, Takaki for many years has continually tried to bridge cultures and ethnic groups in the United States. In his book “A different mirror: A history of multicultural America”, Takaki addresses the idea of multiculturalism in our society, and also talks about how for many years we have been told to acknowledge the notions that the core principles of our nation uprooted only from one group rather than a contribution from other various cultures as well. The ‘master narrative’ posed by Takaki describes the growing
As far as minority groups playing a role in a democratic republic, what role do they play? I mean, what are their actual rights, and to what level will these rights be asserted, while also benefitting the whole society? Mr. Volk explains the answers to these questions in this book Moral Minorities and the Making of American Democracy. Volk focuses this study and book on the protest groups that were actually active during the thirty years leading up to the civil war. And while this was all happening, there were the majorities that were getting into it with the newly confident minorities, giving Volk a perfect storm to study their not so perfect integration together.
Catt explains the history of America’s democracy, political stand and goals through events and quotations of certain presidents. She states, “Abraham Lincoln welded those two axioms into a new one: ‘Ours is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.’” , she states another quote, “Fifty years more passed and the president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, in a mighty crisis of the nation,
Walter Benn Michaels has a large amount of knowledge in diversity, he has written many articles on the topic. Michaels has expressed his knowledge and beliefs that there is a great deal of diversity among human beings. Unfortunately, diversity has been defined by the average Americans as racism verses economic stability. In the article, “The Trouble with Diversity: How We Learned to Love Identity and Ignore Inequality,” Walter Benn Michaels’ skillful presentation of his logos overshadows his less successful portrayal of pathos and ethos concerning the idea of love for identity. However, Michaels has impeccable logos in the article with his references on the idea of love for identity, but does not express his ethos and pathos as fluent.
In “People Like Us”, Brooks David mentions the diversity in United States, and people only willing to hang out with their own kind. To explain this point further, cultures, interests, religions, jobs, and races are all the reason why people tend to stay together. The country has been broken into small segments with their features. For instance, people from the same Asian background gathering in certain area. People even stay in their old neighborhood while they have money to move, because they felt their neighborhood shares their value and culture.
In the “People Like Us” by David Brooks, he talks about the diversity in America. He argues that diversity is something that we tend to forget about. We
The next article we read and discussed was Public Choice: Politics Without Romance by James M. Buchanan. James Buchanan goes onto explain in the article that by asking the government to fix things can often lead to more harm than good. He provides many different examples of how and why this often leads to failure. One of Buchanan’s main concern is how to obtain a combination of efficiency and justice under majority rule. Under majority rule the minority end up getting discriminated against.
Problems in America only grew worse when democracy was being added to the mixture of already complicated politics. In Woody Holton’s book, Unruly American and the Origins of the Constitution, he stated that, “many Americans. . . were growing ‘tired of an excess of democracy,’ a ‘prevailing rage of excessive democracy. . .’ [or] ‘democratical tyranny.’” Democracy was an attempt at home rule among the colonies, but not everyone was happy with this extreme excess of colonial citizens contribution to the government.
The ability for people to look at a situation from a different perspective is vital in today’s globalized society. Diversity is the most important, core attribute we each share that gives us the ability to assess new situations through our diverse backgrounds and upbringings. Unlike Patrick J. Buchanan’s argument in his essay titled “Deconstructing America,” diversity is a necessity in America’s culture as opposed to the burden it is described as. Conversely, Fredrickson 's essay titled “Models of American Ethnic Relations: A Historical Perspective,” illustrated a more precise version of American history that disproves Buchanan’s ethnocentric ideologies. Buchanan speaks of diversity on a narrow, one-way street.
Logos, or logical appeals, imply the use of reasoning, and, moreover, it may be the most powerful strategy in the pocket of the author as his audience is more likely to believe in facts. In the article “People Like Us”, written by David Brooks, an American author and conservative political and cultural commentator for the New York Times, justifies that the United States is a fairly more homogeneous country, rather than diverse, by providing facts and approaching to his audience emotions, even though his ethos appeals are not the best. According to David Brooks, in “People Like Us”, Americans describe diversity today as racial integration, which is proven when an analysis is done on a 2000 census showing that both upper and middle class African Americans decided to live in their generally black neighborhoods” (63). The author uses a strong logos appeal by providing the results of the census:
embraces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man the question of whether a constitutional republic or democracy -- a government of the people, by the same people -- can or cannot maintain its territorial integrity against its own domestic foes. It presents the question whether the discontented individuals-- too few in numbers to control the administration, according to organic law, in anycase -- can always, upon the pretenses made in this case or on any other pretenses, or arbitrarily without any pretense, break up the government and thus practically put an end to free government upon the earth. It forces us to ask: “Is there, in all republics, this inherent and fatal weakness? Make a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own
A Bumpy Ride on the Even Road: Still Separate and Unequal with Pluralistic and Two-tiered Pluralistic Society in the United States In order to illustrate the U.S. politics, especially in terms of racial and ethnic minority issues, many political models used as analytical tools to understand the political resources and opportunities of U.S. racial and ethnic groups in contemporary U.S. society had been proposed. Among these politically important models, two of the most fundamentally important are Pluralism and Two-tiered Pluralism (DeSipio, 2015: Week 2 Lectures; Shaw et. al., 2015).
Summary: How Diversity Make Us Smarter In this essay, “How Diversity Make Us Smarter,” Katherine Phillips illustrates how diversity functions effectively in a group, organization, and society. Philips states diversity has several advantages, such as enhancing creativity, evoking more thoughts, changing behavior, and promoting hard work. Philips supports the advantages by showing the positive outcomes come from different university researches and studies.
Everyday the future in America looks brighter for the issues dealing with race and identity. Brave souls are not letting racism, class discrimination, or sexism hold them back anymore. Furthermore, the fight for a balanced society that pushes for equality is on the horizon. As we close on an era, based on purely the skin of the person, we need to analyze the impacts of the Ethnicity paradigm and Class paradigm on politics of the 20th century. Race and Ethnicity are used interchangeable in everyday conversation, however; they are not the same.
As immigration and relations between races become more influential issues in politics, there have been many opposing views on the treatment of minority groups. Some people believe that diversity and immigration is a threat to original identity while others believe that they are extremely beneficial to society. Writers Samuel P. Huntington in The Hispanic Challenge and Herbert Marcuse in Repressive Tolerance express these differing views regarding these important topics. Huntington takes the ‘threat to identity’ side when explaining how Mexican immigration is extremely different from European immigration. On the other hand, Marcuse takes a different route when explaining the idea of tolerance, claiming that majority groups who oppress the minority