Let a Thousand Licensed Poppies Bloom

This argument is well-crafted, from the title to the last sentence. The title is reminiscent of a beautiful piece of prose but becomes a support of the argument with the addition of the word licensed. The author appeals to logos and ethos by citing many reliable statistics. The author appeals to pathos when discussing the suffering of the countless people dying of AIDS or cancer without pain medication derived from opiates. Showing the failure of the war on drugs to combat the trade in opiates also convinces readers that the status quo is failing to have any effect, combating the natural state of inertia that many people feel when they rely on their inherent conservatism, as the chapter we just read described it. By showing first that what is happening now is not working, the author makes readers more open to seeing new solutions to the problem. The author presents a logical argument that we are spending millions on eradicating drugs when we could spend less to buy those drugs legally, both eliminating the illegal drug problem and supplying opiates to those individuals who need them the most. This argument is well structured and extremely logical.

C.P. Ellis

Ellis's story does offer a credible way to overcome an individual's misunderstanding and hatred towards other races. By speaking with others of that race, by working with them in close proximity on an issue that goes beyond race, one can come to realize that the similarities between us far outweigh the differences. C.P. said that he only began to open up his mind when he talked with Jews or blacks one on one "eyeball to eyeball." When he was forced to work with the black woman he so hated on a project for the school, which transcended race relations even as it involved them, he realized the common ground he shared with her. Only by encountering situations in which you must work for a common goal with people you  hate can you overcome your unreasoning hatred. With a mind willing to be opened and these experiences, you can work past differences and become something better. This cannot work on a large scale simply because his story represents an individual's journey. A group cannot take that journey, but the battle must be won person by person. Only by making personal connections can racism be overcome like it was in C.P. Ellis.

Mainstream

When Yoshino talks about the mainstream as a myth, he is discussing the fact that the concept of a social norm to which we can all match ourselves is bogus. There is in fact no such norm because not a single person can adhere to all of the qualities that would form such a mainstream. We are all such different, diverse people that no single standard can encompass more than one of us. Even the straight, white, angry man in the audience had many factors that people ascribing to the mainstream myth would say do not match their standards. He has many traits that would exclude him from the social norm despite how much he looks like a typical american (a laughable idea in itself) from a distance. He is very persuasive in his reasoning mainly because his ideas are echoed by most of us. Each of us views ourselves as special, individual, unique, and so think we do not conform to the mainstream. We are also all aware of little attempts at covering we do every day to be accepted. I would define mainstream as the typical white, straight male and female, unaffected by either unhappiness or unpopularity, always ready to laugh at a joke or be a good friend. None of us can meet all of these requirements all the time.

Incidents

Life in the north does not live up to Linda's expectations, as she explicitly says during the book. She expects a land free of slavery and free of prejudice, but she only really finds something close to this utopia when she visits england. In the north however, there is still much prejudice and several of the limitations of slavery continue to exist even in the free states. Blacks are required to ride in second-class compartments even if they have the money to pay, and in several places Linda is treated unfairly because of her race. And as a final insult, Linda eventually learns that she is not even secure in her freedom in the free states. When the fugitive slave act is passed, Linda can be captured in the free states and brought back to slavery. Linda is afraid for her life and her freedom until she eventually wins it by being purchased for three hundred dollars. However, even now Linda has mixed feelings because she had sworn never to pay a slaveholder for the freedom she believed she had been given by God. She becomes secure in her freedom, but knows it is only because she was bought by a friend and not because God willed it so.

Emotion

Throughout the piece, Harriet Jacobs makes use of many different styles in order to evoke emotion. The most common and most powerful are direct quotations from slaves about their affliction or slaveholders regarding their cruelty. Other stylistic elements, also powerful, are the breaks from the narrative in which she addresses the reader. Accusing them of being partly to blame for the suffering she is describing evokes shame and will to do better in the reader, and her pleas for help out of hopelessness bring the reader into a state of mind ready to assist the plight of the slaves. An especially moving passage is her description of the old man learning to read despite his age and condition. By describing the devotion to god of a slave in the face of such cruelty, and his desire to learn how to better serve god despite the legal dangers of doing so, Jacobs both teaches us of the plight faced by slaves trying to learn and pulls us more heavily into the world of the slaves. By knowing their desire to learn and their devotion to God, we see how strong they really are as people.

Reality vs. Fiction

Have you ever heard heard the phrase truth is stranger than fiction? Well I have, and I think it applies here. The degradations that we imagine occurring to slaves do not come close to measuring the true damage slavery has done to an entire race. A novel detailing the effects of slavery would likely pale in comparison to the truth laid out by Harriet Jacobs. However, even if such a novel was written, it could still never have the impact of the slave narrative we are reading because it simply didn't happen. If I write a compelling story of how people x subjugates people y on planet z, people may feel sorry for them, but will of course laugh it off as fiction and never take action. When people x becomes whites, people y becomes blacks, and planet z becomes your backyard, the truth hits home and one cannot simply ignore it. Because it is true, one realizes the terrible conditions slaves must live in and one is called to action to try and right the wrongs that have been done. If the narrative is entirely fiction, or if pieces of it are changed, it loses its impact and becomes a useless piece of literature instead of a compelling rallying cry for the abolitionist movement.

Election

One of the things that i first noticed about the election was the constant negative comparison between Mccain and Bush. In nearly every district the announcer on CNN discussed, Mccain was underperforming as compared to Bush, which the announcer heavily focused on. It was here that I first began to believe that Obama was really going to win. Despite the fact that many of these districts were red, Obama was much closer to winning, and he was ahead in many of the key districts. Despite his very early behindness, Obama quickly jumped into the lead and stayed there, eventually defeating Mccain in the entire election. However, what really surprised me was the fact that Indiana voted democrat. I believe that this was a beneficial thing regardless of who one supports. Indiana consistently voted republican for decades, losing its vote for a candidate in a vote for a party. By showing that now it does not hold solidly to one party or another, we can have faith that our state is voting for the candidate it wants, and not just flying the flag of the grand old party and ignoring everyone else.

Racism

While I cannot remember any specific instance in which I experienced a conflict involving race, I can apply what I learned from this text to my general experience with the issue of race. People I have encountered do tend to fall into the category of angry denial about race or a dismissal of it. The dismissal is becoming more prevalent today, as evidenced by the song “Everyone’s a little bit racist” from Avenue Q. This song does bring up a point that prejudice and indifference are ubiquitous in our society, but the nonchalant air of the characters in admitting their “racism” conveys the sense that racism is no big deal, and that the prejudices the characters have are fine or even laughable. If we could realize that the problems faced by our minority groups is not often as severe as racism, if we could change the song to “Everyone’s a little bit indifferent,” we could maintain the word racism as a powerful tool to fight discrimination instead of just a normal word, and we could communicate more effectively the problems prejudice and indifference create in our world today.

Prejudice

According to Parillio, the socialization process is one of the ways prejudice becomes instilled in a person. As an impressionable child with no preexisting concept of how the world works, people tend to absorb and believe unquestioningly the beliefs set forth by their parents and other role models in their society. A child who hears or sees stereotypes already existing in his society will pick them up and avoid that social group. This can occur explicitly, or the person may not even know why they are avoiding that group. Prejudice and other beliefs are instilled in this way. Religion is often passed down generation to generation, and in many cases children adopt the viewpoints of their parents when they are very young and as they get older. The only exception is during the fairly young stage, where young adults reaching maturity often question and rebel against the ideas of their parents. However, in rebellion, they are often following the patterns of their peers, so the socialization process holds. Many of my own beliefs have been instilled this way, from my focus on scientific explanations of the way the world works to my persistent frugality, all coming from my parents or other admired role models.