Injustices and Social Problems
1) Inequality between Males and Females.
2) Poverty increasing greatly
3) Human Rights
4) The Unfairness of Death Penalties/Racism
5) Persecution/Human Rights
Day 1
Why Do Women Still Earn Less Than Men?
Summary:
This article is about how women earn significantly less money than men do. Part of it has to do with the positions women and men receive. Some women aren’t welcome in a usually “male position” which most likely pays higher. Though in general, women earn 77 cents to the male dollar according to census statistics. This eliminates what we take pride in in the US: equality. We make signs of progress though. We have marked April 20 as Equal Pay Day and Obama is working on getting the bill targeting the pay gap into action. The Senate is working on a bill that addresses discrimination. But, this pay gap, as a whole, truly based on gender because even those men who go through surgery to transform to women earn about 32% less than they did before the surgery. Women who transform to men earn 1.5% more. This is plain proof of the discriminatory wages between men and women merely because of their sex.
Day 2
Why Are a Record Number of Americans Living in Poverty?
Summary:
This article is about how in 2009 the US broke it’s all time record for poverty with numbers reaching 43.6 million people. This article also states one main reason as to why it has suddenly jumped so much: the recession. The recession started in December 2007 and in total the poverty rate has jumped 1.5% in just 2 years. This may not seem like a large number but when you compare it to the number it jumped the last recession, which was a mere .2% it becomes clear how much poverty has increased. Because so many people have become unemployed as a result of the recession, and because it is such a tough job market right now, many people don’t have enough money to live a comfortable life.
Day 3
Afghan Women and the Return of the Taliban
Summary:
This article retells the story of an 18-year-old girl named Aisha living in southern Afghan. Aisha ran away from her abusive in-laws living at her husband’s house and was later found by the Taliban. She was taken against her will and dragged to a mountain clearing as punishment for what she had done. Although she had given her side of the story and basically begged at their feet, her judge (who was a local Taliban commander) did not change his mind. Her brother-in-law held her down while her husband pulled out a knife and sliced of her ears and parts of her nose. Aisha passed out but soon awoke. She lived to tell the story but the memories of the unfairness and horrible pain still haunts her. The Afghan government now plans to establish a peace council to help negotiate feuds to prevent something like this from ever happening again.
Day 4
USA Increasingly Isolated as the World Turns Against Death Penalty
Summary:
This article is about people of the US finally beginning to realize and come to the conclusion that an execution of a prisoner or someone found guilty is a “cruel and inhumane punishment”. Many people, including Widney Brown, the Senior Director of International Law and Policy, are questioning how the US can still claim leadership when we “still commit judicial killings”. Also, this article mentions how white suspects of murder are less likely to be put to death than black suspects, which brings out an issue of racism. Towards the end of this article, it talks about how we are beginning to act on the issue of death penalties. New Mexico and New Jersey have already gotten rid of death penalties and since then the annual rate of death sentences have dropped dramatically.
Day 5
Human Rights Activists Face Persecution in China
Summary:
This article explains many different situations of men living in China though all are faced with the same problem or difficulty: they are forbidden to express their feelings and opinions about how the government is run without being severely punished by Chinese police officers. However, these human rights activists’ actions are so harmless, though they are taken very seriously in China. One man, Gao Zhisheng was named “China’s top 10 lawyers” but since diving in to human rights, he has “angered the authorities”. Gao wrote a series of “Open letters for Justice” to show his strong emotions and ideas and soon after his lawyers license was taken away and his family faced constant harassment by the police.
Qinghai Xining , a filmmaker, created a film called “Leaving Fear Behind” which featured many interviews with Tibetans about the problems with human rights. Soon after he finished it, the police discovered the film and Qinghai was tortured for over a year and then sentenced to 6 years in prison.
Final Reflection:
I also learned so much from these articles. I tend to loose track of recent news and I haven’t nearly caught up yet but reading these articles made me feel more informed. I know something others might not. Though after reading all of these articles, I’ve realized the brutal and unjust conditions of the world we live in, especially the conditions outside of the United States. I don’t why I haven’t realized this before. I suppose it was because I just didn’t want to. I didn’t want to think about the bad things in life, I blocked them out, but with reading these articles, they’ve all come back, everything I’ve wanted to forget. But, I guess you can’t say it’s a bad thing, like I said, I’m more informed, I’m smarter, but remember how I worked so hard to push it out, well I can’t anymore. I’m older and I can’t pretend this stuff doesn’t exist because it does. It’s painful to think about. It was bound to happen sometime. I’d have to come out of my bubble eventually, I just didn’t want to believe it. It’s happened, though. Now turning back is no option.
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