Blog stage 8

The topic of your stage 7 assignment was something I really found interesting, especially because the act you wrote about was something I was not well informed on at all, despite being in attendance of the rally. The way the system utilized the fear of student's fear across America in a way to further abuse the inequality in the system is absolutely mind boggling, and it seems to have flown totally under the radar for the most part. To do very little to tackle the problem of school safety we are facing in itself and instead use it as an excuse to further the systematic oppression of students color is something that never would have crossed my mind that is so unbelievably frustrating. The examples you used to explain this are incredibly fascinating and I'm shocked I never saw or read anything about this happening. Thanks for educating me on this !

Blog Stage 7

Only a week following his testimony in front of Congress on the topic of impeachment, 3 separate allegations of sexual misconduct have fallen upon Gordon Sondland, ambassador to the European Union. Horrifying and disgusting, yet not shocking news at this point in time, considering the history of men in this positions. While only allegations at this stage, it is still scary to think a man with now three accusations from women is standing in front of congress, arguing the impeachment of America's current president, someone in political power who also has allegations of sexual misconduct. Sondland himself even contributed 1 million dollars to Trump's inaugural committee. These kinds of situations are very telling about the reality of how our system works. It is especially disappointing keeping in mind that this particular political figure is an ambassador of our country, a man whose job it is to be a diplomat and a representative of our country. Ms.Sept herself in the publication said, “I never met either of the other two women, yet each of our stories contained corroborative elements, which were recounted in the ProPublica and Portland Monthly story,” she said. “I’m coming forward now so other women can tell their stories, and be believed.” It's disheartening to think that even if these allegations are proven to be true, that very little will happen to this man's career in the long run, and that he will continue to be given the task of representing our country, and to be allowed a platform in which he can continue to abuse his place of power and use it to assist men just like him.

Blog Stage 5

In a world where men with rape allegations somehow manage to claim high ranking government jobs and with hate crimes on the rise, it was not shocking at all to learn that the Supreme Court is somehow divided on a topic we as a country thought was decided a while ago. In recent news it was shared that the Supreme Court is now at a point of non-agreement on the topic of the legality concerning job discrimination on the basis of LGBTQ identity. This form of bigotry was banned nationwide in 1998, only 21 years ago, by Clinton during his presidency, but after the 2016 election it is really only disappointing, not surprising, that this is for some reason back up for discussion. The conservatives on the bench are still willing to debate this law, Justice Samuel Alito himself saying, “that whether Title VII should prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a big policy issue, and it is a different policy issue from the one that Congress thought it was addressing in 1964." This recent controversy makes it clear to see that with the fairly recent election of Donald Trump, many have taken this as a sign that close mindedness is once again an option. This argument between the members of the Supreme Court over the right for employers to deny someone the right to a job based solely on that person’s gender identity or sexual orientation could definitely make one concerned about the direction of the country’s moral standards if things don’t change soon.

Opinion Piece

In the opinion piece "Giving smokers more options is not worth endangering a generation" written by The Washington Post's own editorial board, the subject matter of Massachusetts recent shutting down of all e-juice and e-cigarette sales is tackled. The writers provide the background necessary for the readers, who considering the demographic that consumes The Washington Post, is most likely out of the loop in this situation. They discuss the recent surge in numbers of high school students who openly admitted to using e-juice device (1/5 of 10th graders) and the federal government's slow response to what the writers express as a very urgent emergency. This article is written for an audience which most likely does not consists of said 10th graders and I think that leads to a little bit of a disconnect. It at points feels like the writers are concerned for generation z's future, but don't exactly know why. They lack the vernacular as well as enough pressing information/statistics to leave a lasting impact on their readers. I agree with their point that the federal government's response to this literal health crisis was comedically slow and that something needed to be done before this generation turns to using tobacco products as statistics shown has started to happen, but the writers lack a response to the question I'm guessing most readers had, "Won't the Massachusetts ban on the sale of e-juice products only lead to more teens buying tobacco products?" This article's coverage of this state wide attempt on "rescuing" a generation of nicotine addicted teens in definitely both interesting and thought provoking, but does not include enough external information and context to have an impact considering who the readers of this article are most likely to be more around boomer/silent generation age. This is a subject matter that needs to be discussed at higher levels, especially after the e-juice induced seizure that recently occurred, and while I do agree with this piece's argument about the government's dangerous snail pace, I don't think enough was communicated for it to have a lasting affect.

Article Recommendation !!

If any more reasons were needed to dislike the current President of the United States, author for The Washington Post, Michelangelo Signorile uncovers and discusses the multitude of anti-lgbtq activities performed by the Trump embassy during his time in office. Signorile writes about how on a surface level, Trump is not as openly bigoted towards lgbtq members as he is to a variety of other minorities, even occasionally sending tweets to show "support". But if one was paying attention to more than just his social medias and was keeping up to date with his actions as a President, it would be clear he has no intention of being supportive. Despite his tweets, President Trump has fought to legalize lgbtq discrimination by businesses, employers, and even adoption agencies, declaring religion to be the foundation for these changes. Signorile's writing makes it very clear that the president knows exactly what it is that he's doing, putting up a facade online where he knows the public eye is on him most, while slowly working to chip away at what has taken years for the lgbtq community to build. This article also has an interesting point on how social media has impacted politics in recent years, ans is definitely worth giving a read if you weren't already aware of, or had a wrong impression of Trump's opinion on this topic. Given that these following actions are now slowly creeping into the limelight, I'm even more curious to see the percentage of gay Trump voters in the next election compared to the last, which according to Signorile, was a feeble yet still shocking 14%.

Hi !