Expository Essay

Expository Essay

Injustice, oppression, prejudice, and violence against others have characterized humanity since the dawn of civilization, all resulting from an individual or group attempting to use another’s submission as a stepping stone for personal gains. Innovative political movements and philosophy have allowed our species to grow and prosper to an extent; however, minority groups in contemporary societies continue to feel the chokehold of unjust majority rule. These men, women, and children question, on a daily basis, whether their lives’ relevance and stagnation in prejudice society can ever change; an answer comes in the form of a statement rather than a response: progressivism, in the modern era, can successfully combat historical, institutional disparagement of minorities. Specific and consistent applications in law and social perspective, can rapidly encourage the global unity we all, on some level, seek.

Contemporary society relies on law and governmental regulation as its ultimate institutional power and, thus, must be the first means of implementing progressive changes. Past social revolutions epitomize this idea, including the abolition laws against slavery, laissez-faire economic policies, “freedom of religion” integration, women’s and non-biased racial suffrage, and the massive civil rights movement in America. According to his Letter from Birmingham Jail, Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. believes “Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust” (King, 2). In his following paragraphs, King goes on to say that unjust laws also constitute codes that “a majority inflicts on a minority that is not binding on itself,” meaning that laws must apply equally to all groups, and that minorities must play a role in enacting and creating laws through equal voting rights (King, 2). Global democracy requires improvement throughout its future and as Senator, now President, Barack Obama states in A More Perfect Union: “[our] Constitution [promises] its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time” (Obama, 1). One of these “to be perfected” legal concerns regards the general safety of the people. Considering what Dr. King stated on equal treatment, easing safety concerns entails better police patrol schedules, which must span all neighbourhoods in their assigned district and become uniformly frequent throughout. This regulation would equally apply and contribute to all groups, lowering the rates of sexual assault against women, domestic violence and child abuse, opportunistic and financially necessitated theft, and improving familial quality of life. In association, the recent degradation of families, neighbourhoods, and job markets has caused many poor minorities to lack means of supporting themselves, leading them towards criminal lifestyles that endanger the community. In order to uplift these groups, as Dr. King suggests, governments can invest in public welfare shelters offering basic, free, quality medical and survival services. Shelters providing food, water, bedding, and police/first responder security would keep the homeless safe and off the street, lower theft and trespassing rates, and give individuals a means to endure financial burden. An opposing view, however, may argue that society can leech off this system; to defend against this possibility, the concept of shelters must pair itself with another canon: those registered within shelters or as unemployed must accept a constant, stable, government-provided occupation until employed or deemed financially fit. Reserved government job availability rectifies the lack of employment opportunity for minorities, provides a means of financial revenue, and, once again, strengthens quality of life. Government employment may provide monetary income, but it contributes little to vocational mobility; this change must arise from education, a public service supported and enacted by minority and majority groups such as the 100 Black Men of America, Hispanic Organization for the Promotion of Education, and Global Partnership for Education. Public schooling requires additional and uniform funding, allowing and mandating all children to attend, receive quality education, and develop vocational skills. As a result, educational gaps diminish, job opportunity becomes more accessible, and higher education becomes a prospect to underfinanced students. Accommodation is the goal, a mutual relationship between each group to lessen the gaps between them, but it does not stop with finances, gender, and race. Workplaces and other public gathering areas must also accommodate religious practices and public acts of worship under the human right to freedom of religion. Doing so embraces equal treatment of all religious groups, creates a new economic stimulus from the previously marginalized, and influences social view. Congressional changes are pivotal in connecting demographics, encouraging unity, and enhancing equal justice, but, social views, tantamount, must change as well.

In Barack Obama’s words, “words on a parchment would not be enough to . . . provide men and women of every colour and creed their full rights and obligations . . . What would be needed were Americans . . . who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time” (Obama, 1). The gap President Obama references veers its ugly head in contemporary social perspective: lack of opportunity, lack of respect, hate crimes and terrorism, group-consciousness, and a divisive us-them mentality. Laws coincide with equal opportunity, but vocations such as police forces, fire departments, corporate boards, and other “white-collar” jobs still see majority group dominance. Through work and skill outreach programs, however, (such as Npower, the CUNY Service Corps, and Local Veterans Employment Representation) minorities can expand their education with universities and ascend the corporate ladder through their achievements and work ethic. Additionally, corporate voting that includes all employees within a respective department (the department for which an applicant requests to work) can create diverse, equal opportunity work environments; availability and encouragement for all equates groups with each other, rather than make them competitors. As for respect, mentality, and hate crimes, responsibility falls on psychological concepts such as de-individuation and social identity theory, according to their definitions on SimplyPsychology.org and in David Myer’s Psychology (Myers, 569). SimplyPsychology.org claims that individuals influence their own perspective of themselves, their identity, based on the attributes of the group to which they “feel” they belong and gain confidence by asserting that other groups exist “underneath” their own (McLeod, 2008). Groups, thus, begin to express prejudice and negative views of other groups, acting out against each other by strengthening stereotypes, using derogatory language, using discriminatory exclusion, or de-individualizing enough to commit hate crimes and terrorism. Dr. King reveals his personal concerns on de-individuation in segregated, 1960s America when he discusses black, nationalist groups, particularly mentioning one led by Elijah Muhammad (King, 4). Pivotal social influences - all forms of media, schools, civil leaders, and advertisers - can campaign to reverse these psychological perceptions. Individual praise, rather than focusing on race, creed, or gender, on late night programming would divert public attention to achievement rather than group representation; Obama’s commentators described him as “too black,” “not black enough,” or a quick-fix ploy to the race problem by liberals (Obama, 2), however, if media outlets had focused on his achievements as senator, his policy plans, and his ethical conduct, political controversy might not have arisen due to his race. Voters - the passive citizen - also need to take a stand, since they carry a heavy population influence in society, as King expresses in his disappointment with the white moderate in the 1960s (King, 3-4). President Obama also hopes for action in the white American community when he asks them to acknowledge and address discrimination “not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations.  It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper” (Obama, 7). With internal individual change and supported external social campaigns, church groups, schools, and the previously indifferent, unaffected moderate can spread peaceful ideals, protest against acts of discrimination, discourage inappropriate stereotypes, and diminish group-conscious identity, reversing the effects of social identity theory and de-individuation. Lastly, Obama calls for direct unification through the assertion of common struggles (Obama, 7), uplifting each other and not considering people “somebody else’s problem” (Obama, 8). Each progressive idea we integrate into our mentality reinforces the brotherhood sought in all peaceful faiths and advances our species far beyond its current divided limitations.

There is, in fact, only one race – the human race. Conflict may be a necessary, human quality, but it rewards us with the capacity to change, accept, and love; the elimination of disparagement, not conflict, lies in reach for the progressive thinker. Just laws reinforce our equality, opportunity, and quality of life, while positive social perspective enhances brotherhood, closes group gaps, and reminds us that an individual represents such, not a demographic. In a world where progressive changes in law and perspective find voice and enactment, race simply becomes a visually descriptive adjective, gender becomes a means of explaining ambiguous complementary traits, class becomes non-existent, and religion becomes as trivial to identification as whether one prefers cats or dogs. Progressivism outlines our past and future; its exposition, applications, and outcomes conclusively state that embracing another realistically translates to embracing oneself.  

Works Cited

King Jr., Martin Luther. Letter From Birmingham Jail. New York: Liberation, 1963. Print.

Obama, Barack. A More Perfect Union. N.p. 2008. Print.

Myers, David. Psychology. 10^th ed. New York: Worth Custom Publishing, 2013. Print.

McLeod, Saul. Social Identity Theory. SimplyPsychology, 2008. Web.

<www.simplypsychology.org/social-identity-theory.html>