Race/Ethnic and Religious Relations
Develop a national policy to address the issue of the "re-segregating" or America? Are our problems more race/ethnic/religious differences or class differences?
Radical: Ashwin
Re-segregating America is the stupidest idea ever proposed. There is no basis for any laws based on race, ethnicity, or any other arbitrary characteristic. The effects of the Jim Crow laws made it very clear that “separate but equal” would never work. With our racially integrated society it would be impossible to even enforce a new segregation policy.
In the United States the problems with race, ethnicity, and religious affiliations have to do strictly with discourse; the way people see each other and generalize a certain group based on the way they look or what they worship are the problems that plague our society. Unfortunately, as severe as those problems are, they will not be fixed by policy changes. They will only be fixed when people start looking past color.
Classism, on the other hand, is the most overlooked problem in our society. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. It is best exemplified in the dichotomy between the working class and large corporations. New bankruptcy laws make declaring bankruptcy for private citizens a very difficult proposition. However, it remains easy for corporations to declare bankruptcy, wipe clean the financial slate and get a fresh start.
Robert Ulrich, the CEO of Target Corporation, earned $23.1 million, including stock options. Workers at the Target Distribution Center in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, receive a starting salary of a little more than twelve dollars per hour, a decent wage for that area. The situation in the Target stores, however, is far worse. The starting salary at the Hagerstown, Maryland, store is around seven dollars per hour. Workers in the Target stores, like their brethren at Wal-Mart, receive few, if any, benefits. Both Target and Wal-Mart are well known union busting companies, yet both companies are making obscene profits. Their employees are often brutally overworked and underpaid and can be terminated any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all. IF you doubt this go to work for them and try organize the workers.
There are huge tax cuts for the wealthy. There are tax shelters for the rich. Some of the wealthiest corporations on the planet have fictitious home offices in remote islands to avoid paying taxes. All of this is perfectly legal; but is it ethical? These are privileges that the working poor do not have. Where is the justice in this? Why are the rich given ways to get richer? Doesn’t the term “rich” imply an optimal standard of living? Poverty is a cycle that is constantly entrenched by recurring negligence of the oppressed. It is time to help those who cannot help themselves by forcing those who can provide, to provide properly.
Liberal: Sid
The question of whether the educational value of diversity justifies race-conscious policies in public schools is an open one, never directly addressed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the early 1970s, a series of state laws and court decisions mandated the racial integration of school districts within individual cities, often requiring the racial composition of each individual school in the district to reflect the composition of the district as a whole. Forced busing was used mainly in large, ethnically segregated school systems.
With integrated schools, minority students will have equal rights to equipment, facilities and resources that the cities' other advantaged students have, thus giving all students in the city equal educational opportunities. Many "white" schools instill ignorance and racist believes among its students- this is the cause of the still rampant underlying racism in many areas of the country. The desegregating of schools can diminish these racist motives and increase cooperation between races (ex. movie Remember the Titans).
At the beginning of this century, as steamers poured into American ports, their steerages filled with European immigrants, a Jew from England named Israel Zangwill penned a play whose story line has long been forgotten, but whose central theme has not. His production was entitled "The Melting Pot" and its message still holds a tremendous power on the national imagination – the promise that all immigrants can be transformed into Americans, a new alloy forged in a crucible of democracy, freedom and civic responsibility.
Conservative: Viraj
Ultra-Con: Petie
The ultraconservatives believe that our race and religious relations problems stem from the fact that there is just an enormous amount of categories of races and religions. We as citizens of a sovereign nation need to do whatever we can to protect and preserve our true sense of nationalism. There are so many subgroups of races and ethnicities in the country that we seemed to have lost a little bit of what it means to be an American.
The term “hyphenated American” refers to people who consider themselves American as well as of a distinct cultural origin other than American. These include African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Jewish-Americans, English Americans, etc. There is no room for this kind of nonsense. It does not matter if a person’s ancestors are from English or China, if that person gains citizenship as an American he or she shall be identified as only that: an American. Those who use hyphenated Americanism when naming their national identity are pretty much endorsing themselves as “semi-American.” Not only does this lower our overall national pride, but it is also dangerous with each nationality from all over the world aiming to preserve itself in one nation. Some major groups are more concerned with identifying their ethnic groups than with standing up for America. This also brings out the question of allegiance; as President Woodrow Wilson once said, “Any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready."
In the current state of foreign affairs and security, we believe it is necessary for our citizens to show their allegiance to America. Those who do not completely embrace the American title should not be considered a citizen and would be better off in their true “homeland”. Also, the tangling of many different religions within the country will deteriorate the significance of the traditional Christian beliefs of our founding fathers.