An Education System Providing Equal to All November 23, 2009

A western education has been said to be the best of any and true, it offers countless opportunities for any type of person but whose lifestyle is it promoting?  Schools in Canada have many possibilities for success in its students but often there are some who are in need of an extra support lifeline.  For many Aboriginal students, school hasn’t been a most desired place to attend simply because of the constant ridicule and need for support that doesn’t seem to be there for them.

The drop-out rate for Aboriginals has always been regrettably high and many are left wondering why there is such a low success rate for these students to graduate from highschool.  If you think about it, the Aboriginals were, as is well-known, the first to inhabit North America, complete with their own rules, politics, and schooling systems; all which are very different from average schooling practices.  They were surviving all on their own and thriving off the land they respected when along came those who were possessed by a strong sense of ethnocentrism and well determined to assimilate these people.  Now, through all the hardships that have had to be bared by the Aboriginals, they have come to adapt quite well considering the circumstances to which they were forced to accomodate to.  It can be argued that many others people in school can have the exact same types of troubles as Aboriginals but it is trying to be made a priority to cater to Aboriginals first because the education system today is based majorly on european traditions, which are also common to asian traditions.  The main goal is to do well in school as to get a good job to support yourself and possibly a family one day but even though the goal is similar in Aboriginal cultures, the way of getting to that place is completely different, with the teachings holding no resemblance to those of westernized schools.  On top of their initial way of educating each other being completely different from today’s schools, they were forced to be assimilated.  Many immigrants from other countries come here expecting the education system, some even coming here just for the education system, and are well aware of what is to be expected of them and can make connections between the difference in education tactics; while Aboriginals had their type of education, expecting only their traditional learning, here in Canada long before today’s type of learning touched the soil but somehow that education system has become the predominant one just because the other was looked at as being foreign and witchcraft-like.  Everyone who attends western schools haven’t, in the least, had to adapt to this system as much as the Aboriginals and for sure haven’t had to become subject to the severe and harsh assimilation these people have to experience.

Other types of target groups in schools excel or at least succeed more so than Aboriginals because they have been brought up knowing no other form of education or of any kind that differed to such an extreme extent as did the Natives’ traditions did.  True, changing the entire educational system is relatively impossible but because it is impossible, students of Aboriginal descent can use the most support they need.  When it gets down to it, it’s the lack of support that these people need and that’s exactly what they don’t necessarily receive.  On top of all the racism and ridicule they go through while they’re in school, they don’t feel the urge to learn.  I mean, would you if that were your situation?

This has become a topic to think about.  Everyone deserves the right to a proper education that helps them.  School should be able to cater to everyone’s needs and not just a select few.  Think about it.

http://www.leaderpost.com/news/Aboriginal+drop+rate+draws+failing+grade/2141183/story.html

The Highway of Tears November 22, 2009

Nicole Hoar, 25

When you look at this picture, what do you see?  Is she familiar?  What part do you think she plays in society?  Obviously, if she is the main element to my blog, she must be of some importance.  A woman in power, maybe? A civil rights activist?  Because she stars in my writing she must be an influential part of some sort of community but perhaps not.  It is that specific type of common assumption that keeps women like her out of the papers because she in fact seems to be not too important for people to be aware of.  Now, that may not be entirely the case but those in power, or at least those who have the power to distribute information, may not have that view-point but are aware that that is how society has come to operate.  It may be subconscious to most and not to some others and no matter how insistent we are about making everyone an equal in the definition of a human being, there are still those who really hold no interest to some and very little to others.  So why would an editor, let’s say, be inspired to talk about this type of person when what they’re most preoccupied about is selling newspapers?  Broadcasting the story that sticks.

The Highway of Tears, for the last decade, has been a long stretch of road between Prince George and Prince Rupert where countless women, all of Aboriginal descent, have up and disappeared.  It’s these precise women that have somehow escaped the publication other missing women cases could almost impossibly avoid.  So many lives have been unaccounted for and mysteriously very few were even aware of that fact.  It’s a question of humanity; apparently there are those who are newsworthy and those who are not.  When we’ve been able to reach such a high level of information absorption, it’s hard to perceive that there are such predominant subconscious biases that, let’s say, a reporter can cater to stories that they would assume one would want to read.  But when has reading about misery and loss become an act of appetite?  When has one story of death become more important than the death of another?  We have been irrevocably drawn up in the constant measure of stature; the impervious pattern of “important people”.

Nicole Hoar was 25, 5′ 9”, and about 130lbs.  Occasionally wore her dark hair in a high pony tail and had blue eyes and glasses.  Was last seen carrying a purple and black backpack and wearing beige Capri pants with a red long sleeved shirt.  She was carrying an olive green shoulder bag with an orange dragon on it.  She was last seen heading west from Prince George, hitchhiking to Smithers on June 21, 2002.

She’s been missing for a good 7 years now and how often have you seen her as the main element on the 11 o’clock news?

Racism and Civil Rights November 8, 2009

Martin Luther King Jr..  What thoughts come to mind when hearing that name?  What’s the first thing one pictures of who this man could possibly be?  General guesses are usually ones based on what’s already known about him.  If there was not even the slightest glint of recognition over the name and all I told you was that this man, Martin Luther King Jr., was a man who has changed the basis of our time; lots of aspects in our daily life caused because of him, you could guess that this was one remarkable man without even knowing any other single piece of information on him.

Martin Luther King Jr. was born the same as everyone else, came into this world through the same means of entrance that any other person of any other race would but somehow the notion came upon our species that regardless of our undeniable similarities that there had to be one better than the other, somehow an arrogance of such an extreme nature was imbedded in our minds, that though we are all the same, we are also all different therefore one type of difference must, of all sense in this world, be claimed as the better of the many.  Our minds all work in the same ways, all making the effort to acclaim to society’s wants and needs but doing so while keeping to our own aspirations.  Martin Luther King Jr. had many interests, many goals he wanted to see achieved and he was more intelligent than the average person despite the pressure and strain of society constantly insisting that because of the colour of his skin he was of a lesser caliber; a stupidity-embellished mind that was rendered incapable of advanced thought and problem solving.  Despite the constant burden of life that he was meant to be less short of idiotic, he strived way past the normal expectation of learning capability, graduating high school at age 15.  By this time, he was completely aware of what the “white man” thought of him and his race and even though he was only a boy of 15, ideas were already spinning this way and that in his brain, thinking of a way that this could be changed.  He had experienced racism, slight and ambiguous, but it was because of those exchanged that motivated him that much more to change what was happening in the world.

After the incident of Rosa Parks on the Montgomery buses where she refused to move to the back of the bus when asked and was incarcerated for it, Martin King was driven to do something about this.  He and another civil rights activist, Dr. E.D. Nixon arranged a one-day Montgomery bus boycott, where no black person would ride a Montgomery bus of any kind at any time through that day.  Countless buses passed by streets and businesses stark empty, not a person inside save the bus driver.  The company that organized the bus boycott was called the Montgomery Improvement Association and they eventually elected Martin Luther King Jr. to be their president and announced that the one-day bus boycott would not be for one day but continue until Blacks were allowed to sit wherever they desired to on buses.  Naturally not many were pleased with this and people demonstrated their anger by responding violently towards him, bombing his house etc.

Although the bus boycott was a clear statement that the lack of rights for these people was not going to be tolerated any longer, it took a whole year before the Supreme Court ruled that the Jim Crow Laws were against the law.  With this great success, things were actually going somewhere even though there were those who were still, simply put, furious with what was being done.  Martin King and many other black leaders then formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, determined to fight the Jim Crow Laws and eradicate them completely.  Martin King traveled all across America, speaking for the severe need for eliminating all unfair laws.  He spoke for the right that Blacks should register and vote and led marches in Birmingham, Alabama where the police irrevocably acted much more violently than the protesters themselves, in Selma, Alabama where he marched for the right to vote and in Washington in which he made his “I Have A Dream” Speech at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  To their success, soon Blacks were allowed to eat at the same lunch counters, drink from the same water fountains, and share the same bathrooms; small steps in the grand scale of things but a huge improvement to what ridiculous rules were being held against blacks initially.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a determined man and eventually met with presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, who were all interested in abolishing the laws that treated Blacks unfairly.  When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by James Earl Gray, he was en route to Chicago, where he was planning a march for not just poor Blacks but for every race who was subjected to racial circumstances that left in the situation of being financially insecure.

Up to the very end, Martin Luther King was aiming to broaden the societal view of worth and integrity.  He aimed to fight for every race’s injustice because as he said,

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

He fought against the superiority distinction between races, wanting all to be seen as equal and different but in both ways, a positive view-point.  We all are the way we are because we are meant to be that way and differences between us are what makes the similarities that much more important because even though each person in unique as much as each tree grows on a different piece of earth but are still undeniably trees all the same, we cannot lose sight that we are all of the same cloth, same species, feel, love, and think in all the same ways.  When we lose what binds us together as a people, we forget what really matters.

Martin Luther King Jr. dedicated his life to make a difference; the least any of us can do is understand his motives.  Take a gander and learn something; he was a brilliant man.

Children’s Rights October 26, 2009

Children are and always have been in need of extra help because to function in any society one must learn and children and the prime apprentices of life, needing as much assistance as anyone and can’t possibly be expected to perform like an average adult when they haven’t even progressed to the full functioning capacity of applying what they have learned to an average lifestyle.

All over the world children’s rights are being violated and disturbed in more ways than you could possibly count and they’re being expected to lead a lifestyle that even some adults in North America aren’t equipped to do.  A child has innocence, a quality that should be prolonged as much as possible because our world, regrettably, is full of unfair and sometimes tormenting and terrifying circumstances and subjecting people who haven’t yet learned how to deal with such situations could very well cause them to develop differently than how they otherwise would have, sometimes even damaging their psychological self.  Now that being said, I’m in no way implying that all children who live burdensome lives will become socially and emotionally challenged but they will grow up differently and lose that overbearing innocence that every child should be permitted to enjoy at least for a short amount of time.  Because being a child involves doing everything for the first time and learning something new everyday, adding on the extra burden of strenuous, long hour days doesn’t leave them the ability to learn and experience as they would have if they didn’t work.

Child human rights violations are happening everywhere and it’s hard to figure out in what way we can help these children but at the same time try not be ignorant of how their society operates and have our “help” turn out to bring more poverty and economic distress to their community.  The root of these types of problems can be a number of different things from government to ancient laws and the key to eliminating child labour is to fix the problems that promote it.  Even the simplest idea of raising the minimum wage so as to not force children to work because their parents aren’t able to adequately provide the essentials for them.  Action can happen and things can be done to help every single child subject to labour situations but the irrationality of a “quick fix” is not something that could ever be applied to a problem such as this.  In the case of preventing child rights from being violated, persistance, perseverance, and determination can so easily be added into the mix.  The sheer colossal impact that would have would be so exceedingly immense, it would make you think about why you didn’t do it before.

Human Rights Violations October 25, 2009

In our society the concept of human rights violations isn’t one that is usually thought about let alone let known to the public but despite most people’s ignorance to the oppression that is happening in North America, the violations of people’s rights here doesn’t hardly even begin to broach upon the severity of this issue in other parts of our world.  The pure irrationality of some of the laws being passed in other countries is deplorable and I find it interesting how people who’ve been brought up and live in different places can have such an insurmountable difference of views of what is appropriate and what is not, of what is violations of human rights and what is simply an idea with its normal verbigerations and disagreements.  True, what you’re surrounded by when you’re young can effortlessly alter how you perceive society but just the difference of values and morals of comparing one society to another can leave the people of those countries mystified to how the other societal community survives within the rules, regulations, and human image they have created for themselves; and it’s in understanding these differences is what ends up being the most important when collaborating and really defining what is violation of human rights and what is not.

Issues such as these are occurring everywhere, places such as Nicaragua where because of the recent ban on abortions, women are being found without proper life-saving medical treatment.  Doctors are feeling extremely reluctant to assist pregnant women, afraid they might harm the fetus, leaving them open to criminal prosecution under this new law.  Denying these women their right to medical attention is causing huge controversy as to what is best for them and what can be done.  These people are being refused medical help based merely on the fear of  the medical staff and because of that the women are becoming more and more subject to unhealthy births that could easily result in death for both the parent and the child.  The law even allows women and girls to be severely punished for suffering miscarriages and encourages forcing these girls to have babies as result of rape by male relatives.  It’s even going as far as to force children to have children; a demand so ridiculous, one wouldn’t easily identify the reason for such crudeness.  Thirty-three women, of all ages, have died this year during pregnancy compared to the 20 last year in the same time period.

It’s when we hear about things such as this, people’s rights being so obviously violated, that we feel the disgust and disdain for the officials who would allow these types of monstrosities to develop and continue under their supervision.  The only way we could ever fully understand this particular plan of action is if we were subject to their way of living and were presented the reasons behind decisions seemingly so disastrously inhumane and even then understanding may be well out of the question, the meer profit-hungry eyes of the government creating laws of whichever nature as to which best conveniences them.

It’s never fair when women are denied medical care that could effortlessly save their lives if it were just given to them but the only way to help is to learn; aim to fix the underlying issues causing such inadvertent pain and suffering.

Perspectives and Context October 7, 2009

The 2010 Olympics being held in Vancouver and Whistler has been an event well anticipated for by many and said to be a great opportunity for Canadian exposure but there is some controversy over if the Olympics are really something to look forward to or more rather something to take caution into preceding with.  Who does this event really benefit and what types of people are actually going to be able to attend this supposedly spectacular affair?

Starting off with the Indigenous people, they are entirely, irrevocably against every aspect of this coming Olympics.  First of all, the Olympics require land that the Canadian Government doesn’t even have legal access to.  Many Indigenous organizations have banded together with anti-poverty committees and are both determined to fight against the obdurate injustice that the Olympics is creating.

From the eye of the less-fortunate people of our nation, they see this as an unnecessary event that allows all revenue to go directly to private companies as opposed to going to public use or to some people who could use a few extra dollars.  In our day and age there are so many who complain about taxes and public spending but yet they grant permission for exceedingly immense amounts of money to go to a sporting event rather than to single mothers, homeless people, and the disabled.  And on top of refusing money to those who desperately need it, the Olympics is costing many, such as the poor, their homes; as if denying them financial help wasn’t enough.  The Olympics is so seriously causing problems yet they are already immensely over their budget and the games haven’t even started yet; makes you think who else is going to have to suffer to even just get Olympic construction plans completed before the new year starts.

We see the problems that the Olympics have created over the years in other countries that they have been held in.  The Olympics were resisted by many people in Athens and also displaced many in China.  Action against the Olympics taking place here is quickly becoming more and more aggresive; people talking of opposing, preventing, and disrupting the Olympics and calling others to take action with them in response to the social repression it has caused and will keep causing for poor, marginalized, and oppressed communities.

The cost alone is most likely going to make our suffering reach a new extremity, the amount coming close to $6 BILLION; all needing to be acquired through tax payers.

Although there are these issues revolving around this event, there are still many who feel the coming of the Olympics is promoting sports and aspirations all over the world; granting talented people the ability to excel.  But most likely those who are for the Olympics are not entirely aware of the social distress it is creating for lots of people in our society.  Mainly, the benefit of this event goes straight to politics and massive, private companies and corporations and because of that, those people will most likely attempt to find every possible reason to continue with the Olympics rather than actually take a look at all the dismay it is so effortlessly causing.  Those who can afford to buy tickets and at least enjoy these sporting events feel this to be a great traditional affair and find that it is something that needs to happen, although the severity of the consequences can promise to haunt us in far later years to come.  It appears the main motive of the Olympics, a motive at least more conspicuous this year, is to gain as much profit as can be acquired but it’ll be profit that will seemingly go no where near helping our society beat its most poignant problems.

It’s tough to see the main reasoning behind national actions but a lot can be assumed and basically, if complete, accurate information is being refused, it gets to the point where you’ll have to choose for yourself what to believe; are the Olympics there for us or for political financial advancement?

Take a look for yourself:

http://www.2010watch.com/ http://www.anarkismo.net/article/7304

http://mostlywater.org/nym_calls_for_boycott_and_cancellation_of_2010_winter_olympic_games

Social Bias and Issues September 23, 2009

The word ‘racism’ is not one that goes too often unrequited and unknown.  Racism can be a very touchy and sensitive subject for most who talk about it and most likely every person you talk to will have a different variation of an opinion.  Our law states that every person is entitled to all rights and freedoms regardless of their race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. but regrettably, many countries still have many biases towards people of different races because they haven’t necessarily been taught that those beliefs are unfair and demeaning.

Racism — Global Issues: www.globalissues.org/article/165/racism This link dictates numerous amounts of information on racism all over the world.  Racism from different countries and of people with various backgrounds is good knowledge to at least know of.  Various people are going to believe many different things and it’s beneficial to be aware of that.

Although we, sadly, all succumb to having biases in our lives one way or another, it’s easy to overlook them.  It is true, I’ve had many biases over my life-time but I can’t say they were ever based on such issues as race.

Our biases affect the way we address almost every aspect in our lives, from tasks as simple as going to the grocery store to as more complex as bringing up a child.  Our biases are going to cause us to treat that cashier at the store differently than we otherwise would.  They’re going to cause us to teach our children to have these same biases.  If biases can affect circumstances so ordinary as those, it’s no question that they can affect the way we address social justice issues.  We’re not going to want to help out with causes in which we think have no real benefit or are assisting those who we think don’t really deserve the assistance.  And because we would already have these biases we would keep from educating ourselves further on the issues.  And it’s precisely because of these probable situations that it’s important that we are aware of our own biases.  If we know that what we think isn’t necessarily true we can eventually encourage ourselves to dispense of our ignorance on the topic.  Being aware of our biases may not be a quick fix but it has it’s advantages.  One who knows of their own biases can learn to overcome them and stop them from becoming predominant over their way of thinking.  Just because the biases are there doesn’t mean they have to rule our lives.

Critical Consciousness September 16, 2009

Having a critical consciousness means understanding the world around you and granting the possibilities of political or social-type contradictory circumstances.  It also means to speak up against oppressive situations in your life or in society.  Not believing everything you hear or read or see and realize that there are always two sides to every story.

I think it’s very important for one to develop a critical consciousness in any societal circumstances because it aids in the understanding of how political or social elements operate and why things are done the way they are.  Not everything you hear about in society is necessarily going to be what you should hear about and sometimes the best way to figure out what’s right is to think of reasons why newspapers, t.v. broadcasting, or even friends want you to know a certain situation or fact, this way and how it affects you and other people in the world.

Social Justice 12: My Very First Blog September 14, 2009

Hey there, my name’s Natasha and I’m in grade 11.  Social injustice has always been a subject that’s really struck a cord with me and I think the first thing I can do about it is to learn. It has to start with us right?

I can’t wait for the final project and I think that I’m going to have the most fun just going over all the different ways that this project could take form.  I ‘m really excited and I can’t wait to see what other people come up with too.

Hello world! September 10, 2009

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!