Author: eicholtz.3

Is To Kill a Mockingbird Problematic? – Text Review Assignment – Benjamin Eicholtz

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To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most recognizable books in American Literature. It was written in 1960 by Harper Lee, and follows the story of a young girl named Scout, whose father is a Lawyer in a very conservative Alabama town. While the story of To Kill a Mockingbird mostly followed Scout and her brother Jem, the main takeaway from the story comes from her father’s actions. Her father’s name was Atticus, and he decided to become the lawyer for a black man named Tom Robinson being accused of raping a white girl. Atticus and his children face an enormous amount of backlash for defending a black man, and their lives are completely consumed by the case as it continues. Even though Atticus clearly proved that Tom had not raped the white woman, the jury would convict him anyways. Later Tom would attempt jail and be shot, while Scout and her brother are harassed even after for their father defending Tom. There was also a movie based off of the book made shortly after in 1962, which features a very famous image of Atticus defending Tom during the trial.

The big issue that had been raised with this book and movie in recent history have been its racist undertones. A lot of people nowadays group this book into something called the ‘white savior complex’, which is where a white person in a position of power helps a minority that is not, and is seen as noble in whatever piece of literature or cinema they take place in. Not only this, but To Kill a Mockingbird contains some language that I won’t repeat here, that would not be okay in any sense with today’s standards. I don’t think I, nor most people that read the book or watch the movie, have any problem with what happens with how it is perceived today. People have a problem with Atticus being made out to be a hero, and feeding that white savior complex I talked about earlier. However, this book predates a large majority of the Civil Rights Movement, so a white person sticking up for a black man was something very important for people to see in society during that time. In terms of the book or novel itself, I think it should be available to purchase but I don’t think it should be taught in nearly every high school English class like it is currently. The white person of a story being made a hero while a black person is put down in society could inadvertently just perpetuate that ideal in the eyes of so many impressionable young adults, so yes I would say To Kill a Mockingbird is somewhat problematic.

Yo, Is This Classist and/or Racist? – Benjamin Eicholtz

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What’s up people! Today I wanted to talk about and give an in depth analysis on a sort of buzz-word that everyone hears often, but don’t really know the ins and outs about. And this thing is Affirmative Action, both in college and the workplace. A lot of people have some big opinions on this topic, without fully understanding both the benefits and drawbacks that it offers. Some people think it provides the ultimate equalizer for admissions into different areas, and some think it is ignoring too many people that try hard but are disadvantaged because of affirmative action. So now I want to try my best to only provide the facts, since it is such a divisive topic. So first off, here is the history:

Affirmative Action is a set of policies or legislation that aims to increase equality in education and employment based on gender, race, sexuality, and nationality. Most policies under this umbrella want to increase diversity, bridge inequality, and correct past harms. The first policies like this were enacted in 1961 by John F. Kennedy through Executive Order 10925, with future policy increases occurring later on. Some examples of this are the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Executive Order 11246 an 11375 by Lyndon B. Johnson. In the past 20 years or so, more and more people have brought up the questionable constitutionality of the acts. In the Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger, it held up in court that public institutions can factor race into college admissions. States like California, Michigan, and Washington have banned the use of affirmative action, and instead want to focus on socio-economic status when adjusting college admissions. Let me emphasize that not only were these actions important, but they were absolutely vital for the inclusion of people from all walks of life to get a fair shot. Without these various orders and bills being passed, minorities might be even further behind then many are today. However, today these policies may create more division in this country than they are worth, especially in colleges. One of the biggest indicators for success later in life is having a college degree, so the fact that college admissions may not be currently handled correctly is a huge problem in present day America.

Well how does it work in college admissions? That is a very loaded question to answer. Well, it does indeed do what it intends, and allows many more minorities to get into college programs that otherwise likely would have been turned away. It corrects for Black and Hispanic people to be more likely to make it into a competitive programs, while making it marginally less likely for White and Asian people to get in. In most colleges, they don’t turn away many people and their acceptance rate is very high, so there are not many people Affirmative Action can hurt. However, in the more prestigious organizations, they use it way more often in their admissions. This lets certain people get in, but often leaves the possibility that someone just as deserving of the spot can not get into their dream college. Take ACT results for example, Black and Hispanic people receive “boosts” to their scores while White people’s remain the same and Asian’s scores are artificially lowered in this current system. Some people’s admissions rates are drastically increased while others chances go down. With the rising hate crimes occurring against Asian Americans, the fact that most of the best colleges in the country actively treat Asian applicants differently than others is an even worse look than it normally is. There have already been numerous lawsuits that have been filed against these colleges on the behalf of Asian Americans, with most not having concluded yet. These current policies end up helping people that don’t need the help as much more often than not. The largest beneficiaries of current policy are upper-middle class Black Americans, not poor minorities. As it should be to no one’s surprise, families that have more money can spend that money on their child’s education, therefore giving their kid a head start in life and leading to a better chance at success. The reason for this being that these people already had the resources to succeed at the high school level and have a greater chance of getting higher test scores because of their socio-economic status, as well as getting a boost from Affirmative Action. This not only gives a boost to people that don’t need the artificial help as much as others, but leaves out poorer Americans that would really need the help to get ahead, regardless of race. This does not even factor Legacy students, who have a much higher chance of being admitted simply because a relative has already gone to the school. Not only is this a terrible concept to begin with, it helps those who already have had the means and resources to previously succeed at a university instead of a family that could be sending their first person to college. Affirmative action today is treated more as reparations for slavery than actually helping people that desperately need it to get ahead in the broken system we currently live in. As some states have already suggested, if we instead focused on adjusting for a families income when talking about college admissions, it would be way more likely to help those that could actually need it. This would still mostly benefit minorities that have been historically disenfranchised, but actually impact those that are the furthest behind the most. While admissions focusing on socio-economic status is currently lacking, at least programs like FAFSA account for expenses for disadvantaged people once they get into school. I personally think that Affirmative Action was absolutely essential to the proper inclusion of all different types of people, but there are better ways of tackling the problem of inclusion in our current society when it comes to college admissions.

Title IX is another divisive piece of legislation related to Affirmative Action, that directly relates to trying to end gender discrimination in colleges. Title IX is part of the Education Amendments of 1972, which helped end sexual harassment in education and the workplace. Another part of this act was promoting more women to join athletics, so public colleges need to have equal amounts of male and female athletes and programs. While this has been super effective at getting more women involved in their school’s athletics, it has resulted in a multitude of negative side effects for males. Title IX has resulted in hundreds of colleges cutting several of the men’s sports programs, most commonly cross country, track, golf, and tennis. Colleges only have so much money to go around, so they want to keep the male sports that bring in the most revenue, which are football and basketball at most colleges. These sports also have the largest rosters, so many of the spots that a college gets to use for male athletes only go towards ones that bring in money for the school. This results in many males getting turned away from the possibility of being able to compete for their school at the next level, which would happen less often if not for the male athletes cap caused by Title IX. There has to be a way to still promote women joining more sports at their respective school, while not punishing men for also enjoying athletic activity.

I have dragged Affirmative Action for long enough, its time to focus on the major good that it has caused in the workplace. Contrary to what some think, it does not cause quotas or throw out the use of merit-based hiring. It has helped both women and minorities not only get hired, but it has helped them be treated more fairly than they had ever been. More than half of the United States work force now consists of women, immigrants, and minorities. Affirmative Action causes business not to hire people based on the total population, but in proportional numbers to the pool of qualified candidates. While there is still the huge problem with lack of women and minorities in leadership roles, this has been moving in the right direction since the programs have been introduced. This is one area that I would for sure push back on people that disagree with Affirmative Action, because it is becoming increasingly important that there is no lack of diversity in the workplace because it can only serve to benefit everyone involved. While every piece of the law has an issue, it is not worth getting rid of Affirmative Action in the workplace.

 

So, is Affirmative Action racist and/or classist? Yes, and no, depending on what area of life we are talking about. In college, I think that it causes more harm than good. While at many schools their acceptance rate is so high that it often doesn’t come into play, at the highest level schools it hurts too many people that still deserve to get in. And with the inclusion of Title IX, I think policies like this often overstep their bounds and create a bridge where there doesn’t have to be one. However, Affirmative Action has been beneficial in the workplace since its inception, and will only serve to improve workplace diversity in the United States. Affirmative Action in all areas has increasingly been pushed back against by the public, so it will be very interesting to see what will be done with it in the coming years. So anyways, thanks for reading my article today and I hope you can take away something from it that you didn’t think about before. Not everyone will agree with my point of view, but that is okay because we all get our chance to share our perspective on what effects all of our lives.

 

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action 

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2017/08/07/look-data-and-arguments-about-asian-americans-and-admissions-elite 

https://hr.uoregon.edu/employee-labor-relations/affirmative-action/affirmative-action-myths-and-realities 

https://blog.collegevine.com/sibling-legacy-college-admissions/ 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_IX#Equity_in_athletics 

Diary of Systematic Injustice Showcase – Benjamin Eicholtz

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As I have previously discussed in my third journal entry, the National Football League has a long history of under-representing the 70% of African American men that play in the league. Out of the 32 teams in the NFL, there are only two black head coaches and two black general managers, and there is not a single black owner of a team. I went in depth about the history of black people either being under-represented or treated as lesser than by coaches and leaders of the organization, I want to focus on problems the league faces today. There is a very clear lack of black head coaches around the league, and more than enough qualified candidates that would be able to fill those roles but still can’t find the job. Currently, one of the clearest examples of this is Eric Bieniemy, the Kansas City Chiefs Offensive Coordinator. He has helped lead one of the best offenses in football of all time over the past 3 years, and has been great since 2013 when he joined the organization. He has led the Chiefs offense to 3 AFC championship games in the past three seasons, and a Super Bowl win in 2019. Bieniemy has arguably been the top candidate for a head coaching job over the past three season because he has been so good, yet he has held the same title of Offensive Coordinator. Another example is the Super Bowl winning Offensive Coordinator Byron Leftwich, who also did not manage to get a head coaching job despite his extremely impressive resume. This picture below shows the lack of black head coaches over time, with it getting worse recently.

However, this problem can only be solved through change at the owner level. As of today, there is not a single African American that owns an NFL franchise. Actually, there is only one owner across the NFL, NBA, and MLB that is, and that is Michael Jordan who owns the Charlotte Hornets. People are more inclined to hire those with similar experiences as them, so unless something changes at the executive level for the National Football League, there most likely won’t be substantial change. The league has recently been more public about supporting groups such as Black Lives Matter and standing up for change, but seem to not be doing anything about the problems in their own organization.

 

Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexreimer/2021/01/22/nfl-teams-egregiously-passing-on-black-head-coaches-shows-rooney-rule-cant-change-biases/?sh=161a21f11802

https://www.nfl.com/news/eric-bieniemy-byron-leftwich-left-waiting-as-number-of-black-nfl-head-coaches-st

Context Research Presentation – What Makes Up the Three Worlds Theory? – Benjamin Eicholtz

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For my Context Research Presentation I wanted to talk about what the Three Worlds Theory actually is because it was not discussed in detail, even though it was mentioned throughout Aijaz Ahmad’s section of reading. The Three World model is a way of classifying areas of the world, first made in the 1970’s during the Cold War. The First World were the capitalist nations, the Second being the communist, and the Third World being those that were either neutral or could not be put into either category. These Third World countries were mostly those that were previously colonized by either of the First or Second Worlds. While the first three categories were defined by political and economic status, the Third World seemed to be purely defined as those that were previously controlled by other nations. While there is an easy transition for either of the First or Second worlds to become the other by changing their politico-economic stance, there is no clear path for a ‘Third World’ country to become one of the others, which keeps itself defined as previously oppressed. This causes the country to be in large part ignored for its economic or cultural traits unlike the other two. While the original purpose of the Three World model was to define the two blocs that made up the Cold War, it in turn left out all of the other nations that did not have a large international presence at the time and in turn has caused them to be forgotten in a sense. Even after the Cold War has ended, the model is still taught to this day to define countries that either still do not have a large international presence or those that have been forgotten in our Euro-centric history classes. Ahmad suggests in his reading that we think of individual experiences instead of looking at “World” a story comes from to form a collective to form an idea of the human experience, and I would have to agree wholeheartedly.

 

Sources:

https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/ziliao_665539/3602_665543/3604_665547/t18008.shtml

https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1a/red-dawn.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-world_model