Is Wal-Mart Good for America?

After watching the film on Frontline and reading the story about the death of a Wal-Mart employee, answer the question:

Is Wal-Mart good for America?

Work for Thursday 12 18 08

Plans for 12 18 08
1. Complete the schema activator
2. Watch PBS Now film at the following Website
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/427
3. Use the comparison organizer to chart your ideas.
4. Research one story about unemployment in the U.S. and complete the organizer.

Industry and Work

1. Read the documents at the following website:

http://www.edteck.com/dbq/dbquest/quest11.htm

2. Find patterns within the documents and develop a thesis statement.

3. Write an introductory paragraph for an essay about industrialization.

Work for 12 12 08

Sociology

1. Students should read the FAQ’s about retirement at: (10 minutes)

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement/need/

2. Show the documentary “Can you afford to retire?” at:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement/view/
3. Students should respond to the question on the blog:

Do you think you will be able to afford to retire? Explain.

Perspectives on the Elderly

1. Read the story at this website for background:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/worldbalance/roleplay/grow-background.html

2. Find a study about aging. You might start by going to this website for a lead.

http://www.aarp.org/

3. Prepare a presentation Entitled, "10 Useful Tips for People Over the Age of 60 about...."

Possible Topics Include:

Health
Driving
Finding a Job
Politics
Medicine
Volunteering
Marrying
Fitness
Travel
Vacations

Segregation and Schooling

Why are school so segregated in 2008?

Compare and Contrast Segregation in Seattle c. 1960 to the South c. 1960.

1. Watch the film called: A Class Divided

2. Review the documents on Segregation in the 1960's

3. Decide which patterns emerged and which documents are central to these patterns.

4. Homework: Write an essay comparing and contrasting school segregation in the South and Far Northwest of the U.S. in the 1960's.

a. Paragraph 1: Thesis and introduction
b. Paragraph 2: Central Similarities(Compare)
c. Paragraph 3: central Differences(Contrast)
d. Paragraph 4: The meaning of your analysis/Conclusion

NCLB Simulation Reflection

Reflect on the No Child Left Behind simulation. What are your thoughts on the how the law works? Based on the law, what do you think the people that invented it believe is the purpose of education? What would a conflict theorist or a functionalist theorist say about the law? Refer to at least two presentations to make your case.

A class divided video link

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/divided/etc/view.html

The Farmer's Wife

How does the Farmer's wife's role change throughout the documentary? Cite two examples from the film.

Ladies First: Feminism and Government

What are your thoughts on the film, "Ladies First"?

Give at least two examples from the film or the article, "Accidental Feminists."

Oral History Questionairre

Summarize the results of your oral history questionairre.

DBQ on Women and Reform

1. Read the documents at the following website.

http://www.mury.k12.ut.us/MHS/apus/dbq/2005/group08.htm

2. Complete the chart in class on groupings, documents, and thesis development.

3. Write an essay of no more than three pages in length due Monday responding to the prompt:

Using the documents and your knowledge of the time period, analyze the social, political, and economic effectiveness of women's reforms during the period 1890 through 1930.

Women and the Veil

Read interview with the Suadi Arabian sociologist at the website:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/saudi_arabia/saudi_shaker_full.html

Respond to the question:

What does it mean to be a woman in Saudi Arabia? Cite at three examples that Fatina Shaker mentions.

Respond by midnight on 11/12/08

Response for 11/10/08

Evaluate the statement, "Women around the world want political power." Use examples from the film,"Women, power, and politics."

How does Obama's election to the American Presidency change racial and ethnic relations?

Answer the question above after viewing the film Black in America Part 2. Your response should be at least one paragraph in length and you should use several examples from the film.

Amandla!

What are your thoughts about the resistance to apartheid? As a minority group, what were the issues faced by black South African? What was the basis of race in South Africa? (Culture, Biology, Physical Traits)

Is Bill Cosby Right?

1. Read the speech below
2. Create an outline of Bill Cosby's major points and details.(Turn in)
3. Be prepared to discuss his major point in class and debate the question: Is Bill Cosby Right?


DR BILL COSBY SPEAKS

at the 50th Anniversary commemoration
of the Brown vs Topeka Board of Education
Supreme Court Decision



Transcript kindly provided by
Dr Bill Cosby's public relations representatives.


(*Editor's note: Please understand that there may be some minor typographical inaccuracies resulting from audio to text software resolution issues.)




Ladies and gentlemen, I really have to ask you to seriously consider what you’ve heard, and now this is the end of the evening so to speak. I heard a prize fight manager say to his fellow who was losing badly, “David, listen to me. It’s not what’s he’s doing to you. It’s what you’re not doing. (laughter).
Ladies and gentlemen, these people set, they opened the doors, they gave us the right, and today, ladies and gentlemen, in our cities and public schools we have fifty percent drop out. In our own neighborhood, we have men in prison. No longer is a person embarrassed because they’re pregnant without a husband. (clapping) No longer is a boy considered an embarrassment if he tries to run away from being the father of the unmarried child (clapping)
.
Ladies and gentlemen, the lower economic and lower middle economic people are [not*] holding their end in this deal. In the neighborhood that most of us grew up in, parenting is not going on. (clapping) In the old days, you couldn’t hooky school because every drawn shade was an eye (laughing). And before your mother got off the bus and to the house, she knew exactly where you had gone, who had gone into the house, and where you got on whatever you had one and where you got it from. Parents don’t know that today.
I’m talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit. Where were you when he was two? (clapping) Where were you when he was twelve? (clapping) Where were you when he was eighteen, and how come you don’t know he had a pistol? (clapping) And where is his father, and why don’t you know where he is? And why doesn’t the father show up to talk to this boy?

The church is only open on Sunday. And you can’t keep asking Jesus to ask doing things for you (clapping). You can’t keep asking that God will find a way. God is tired of you (clapping and laughing). God was there when they won all those cases. 50 in a row. That’s where God was because these people were doing something. And God said, “I’m going to find a way.” I wasn’t there when God said it… I’m making this up (laughter). But it sounds like what God would do (laughter).
We cannot blame white people. White people (clapping) .. white people don’t live over there. They close up the shop early. The Korean ones still don’t know us as well…they stay open 24 hours (laughter).
I’m looking and I see a man named Kenneth Clark. He and his wife Mamie…Kenneth’s still alive. I have to apologize to him for these people because Kenneth said it straight. He said you have to strengthen yourselves…and we’ve got to have that black doll. And everybody said it. Julian Bond said it. Dick Gregory said it. All these lawyers said it. And you wouldn’t know that anybody had done a damned thing.

50 percent drop out rate, I’m telling you, and people in jail, and women having children by five, six different men. Under what excuse, I want somebody to love me, and as soon as you have it, you forget to parent. Grandmother, mother, and great grandmother in the same room, raising children, and the child knows nothing about love or respect of any one of the three of them (clapping). All this child knows is “gimme, gimme, gimme.” These people want to buy the friendship of a child….and the child couldn’t care less. Those of us sitting out here who have gone on to some college or whatever we’ve done, we still fear our parents (clapping and laughter). And these people are not parenting. They’re buying things for the kid. $500 sneakers, for what? They won’t buy or spend $250 on Hooked on Phonics. (clapping)
A\Kenneth Clark, somewhere in his home in upstate New York…just looking ahead. Thank God, he doesn’t know what’s going on, thank God. But these people, the ones up here in the balcony fought so hard. Looking at the incarcerated, these are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! Then we all run out and are outraged, “The cops shouldn’t have shot him” What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand? (laughter and clapping). I wanted a piece of pound cake just as bad as anybody else (laughter) And I looked at it and I had no money. And something called parenting said if get caught with it you’re going to embarrass your mother. Not you’re going to get your butt kicked. No. You’re going to embarrass your mother. You’re going to embarrass your family.
If knock that girl up, you’re going to have to run away because it’s going to be too embarrassing for your family. In the old days, a girl getting pregnant had to go down South, and then her mother would go down to get her. But the mother had the baby. I said the mother had the baby. The girl didn’t have a baby. The mother had the baby in two weeks. (laughter) We are not parenting. Ladies and gentlemen, listen to these people, they are showing you what’s wrong. People putting their clothes on backwards. –isn’t that a sign of something going on wrong? (laughter)

Are you not paying attention, people with their hat on backwards, pants down around the crack. Isn’t that a sign of something, or are you waiting for Jesus to pull his pants up (laughter and clapping ). Isn’t it a sign of something when she’s got her dress all the way up to the crack…and got all kinds of needles and things going through her body. What part of Africa did this come from? (laughter). We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans, they don’t know a damned thing about Africa. With names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed and all that crap and all of them are in jail. (When we give these kinds names to our children, we give them the strength and inspiration in the meaning of those names. What’s the point of giving them strong names if there is not parenting and values backing it up).

Brown Versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person’s problem. We’ve got to take the neighborhood back (clapping). We’ve got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It’s right around the corner. (laughter) It’s standing on the corner. It can’t speak English. It doesn’t want to speak English. I can’t even talk the way these people talk. “Why you ain’t where you is go, ra,” I don’t know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk (laughter). Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it’s important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can’t land a plane with “why you ain’t…” You can’t be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they’re moving ahead on this. Well, they know they’re not, they’re just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you’re just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out.
Now look, I’m telling you. It’s not what they’re doing to us. It’s what we’re not doing. 50 percent drop out. Look, we’re raising our own ingrown immigrants. These people are fighting hard to be ignorant. There’s no English being spoken, and they’re walking and they’re angry. Oh God, they’re angry and they have pistols and they shoot and they do stupid things. And after they kill somebody, they don’t have a plan. Just murder somebody. Boom. Over what? A pizza? And then run to the poor cousin’s house. They sit there and the cousin says “what are you doing here?” “I just killed somebody, man.” “What?” “I just killed somebody, I’ve got to stay here.” “No, you don’t.” “Well, give me some money, I’ll go…” “Where are you going?” “North Carolina.” Everybody wanted to go to North Carolina. But the police know where you’re going because your cousin has a record.
Five or six different children, same woman, eight, ten different husbands or whatever, pretty soon you’re going to have to have DNA cards so you can tell who you’re making love to. You don’t who this is. It might be your grandmother. (laughter) I’m telling you, they’re young enough. Hey, you have a baby when you’re twelve. Your baby turns thirteen and has a baby, how old are you? Huh? Grandmother. By the time you’re twelve, you could have sex with your grandmother, you keep those numbers coming. I’m just predicting.
I’m saying Brown Vs. Board of Education. We’ve got to hit the streets, ladies and gentlemen. I’m winding up, now , no more applause. I’m saying, look at the Black Muslims. There are Black Muslims standing on the street corners and they say so forth and so on, and we’rere laughing at them because they have bean pies and all that, but you don’t read “Black Muslim gunned down while chastising drug dealer.” You don’t read that. They don’t shoot down Black Muslims. You understand me. Muslims tell you to get out of the neighborhood. When you want to clear your neighborhood out, first thing you do is go get the Black Muslims, bean pies and all (laughter). And your neighborhood is then clear. The police can’t do it .
I’m telling you Christians, what’s wrong with you? Why can’t you hit the streets? Why can’t you clean it out yourselves? It’s our time now, ladies and gentlemen. It is our time (clapping). And I’ve got good news for you. It’s not about money. It’s about you doing something ordinarily that we do—get in somebody else’s business. It’s time for you to not accept the language that these people are speaking, which will take them nowhere. What the hell good is Brown V. Board of Education if nobody wants it?

What is it with young girls getting after some girl who wants to still remain a virgin. Who are these sick black people and where did they come from and why haven’t they been parented to shut up? To go up to girls and try to get a club where “you are nobody..,” this is a sickness ladies and gentlemen and we are not paying attention to these children. These are children. They don’t know anything. They don’t have anything. They’re homeless people. All they know how to do is beg. And you give it to them, trying to win their friendship. And what are they good for? And then they stand there in an orange suit and you drop to your knees, “(crying sound) He didn’t do anything, he didn’t do anything.” Yes, he did do it. And you need to have an orange suit on too (laughter, clapping).
So, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for the award (big laughter) and giving me an opportunity to speak because, I mean, this is the future, and all of these people who lined up and done..they’ve got to be wondering what the hell happened. Brown V. Board of Education, these people who marched and were hit in the face with rocks and punched in the face to get an education and we got these knuckleheads walking around who don’t want to learn English (clapping) I know that you all know it. I just want to get you as angry that you ought to be. When you walk around the neighborhood and you see this stuff, that stuff’s not funny. These people are not funny anymore. And that ‘s not brother. And that’s not my sister. They’re faking and they’re dragging me way down because the state, the city and all these people have to pick up the tab on them because they don’t want to accept that they have to study to get an education.

We have to begin to build in the neighborhood, have restaurants, have cleaners, have pharmacies, have real estate, have medical buildings instead of trying to rob them all. And so, ladies and gentlemen, please, Dorothy Height, where ever she’s sitting, she didn’t do all that stuff so that she could hear somebody say “I can’t stand algebra, I can’t stand…and “what you is.” It’s horrible.
Basketball players, multimillionaires can’t write a paragraph. Football players, multimillionaires, can’t read. Yes. Multimillionaires. Well, Brown V Board of Education, where are we today? It’s there. They paved the way. What did we do with it. The white man, he’s laughing, got to be laughing. 50 percent drop out, rest of them in prison.
You got to tell me that if there was parenting, help me, if there was parenting, he wouldn’t have picked up the Coca Cola bottle and walked out with it to get shot in the back of the head. He wouldn’t have. Not if he loved his parents. And not if they were parenting! Not if the father would come home. Not if the boy hadn’t dropped the sperm cell inside of the girl and the girl had said, “No, you have to come back here and be the father of this child.” Not ..“I don’t have to.”

Therefore, you have the pile up of these sweet beautiful things born by nature raised by no one. Give them presents. You’re raising pimps. That’s what a pimp is. A pimp will act nasty to you so you have to go out and get them something. And then you bring it back and maybe he or she hugs you. And that’s why pimp is so famous. They’ve got a drink called the “Pimp-something.” You all wonder what that’s about, don’t you? Well, you’re probably going to let Jesus figure it out for you (laughter). Well, I’ve got something to tell you about Jesus. When you go to the church, look at the stained glass things of Jesus. Look at them. Is Jesus smiling? Not in one picture. So, tell your friends. Let’s try to do something. Let’s try to make Jesus smile. Let’s start parenting. Thank you, thank you (clapping, cheers)

Assignment for Thursday October 23, 2008

Students,

I am out today so here is the assignment...

Know: Affirmative Action is a philosophy of increased minority participation in government, business, and education.
Understand: Race matters in America
Be able to do: Critique an article about Affirmative action


1. Read the 13 myths about Affirmative Action at:

http://www.aapf.org/focus/

2. Watch the video, if the classroom computer is set up by an adult, "Attacking Affirmative Action. The video is here at this site as well as the transcript if you can not view the video.

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/434/

3. Discuss with a neighbor, "what is affirmative action? and why is it under attack?"

4. Research one of the stories about affirmative action from the PBS or Washington Post website:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/affirm/keystories.htm

or

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/434/

5. Prepare a PowerPoint presentation that answers the questions:

What happened?
Why at that time?
Why did it it happen in this way?
Why does the article point to white privelege?
How does the article understand race? (biological, cultural, physical)

6. Send Mr. Cotto your PowerPoint presentation.

7. Be prepared to present tomorrow in class.

CNN Presents: Black in America Part I

What does it meant to be black in America? Refer to the film to make yuor claims.

Carlisle Indian School

Review the DBQ at the following website:


http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfdfqwjf_13g7gmm4vn


Be prepared to discuss the questions: How was Indian a social construct? What were Indians be socialized to become?

Who won the debate? How does race matter in this presidential race?

Race matters in America

Which minority, racial, ethnic groups are you part of? Why does it matter?

Why do gangs form?

Use the documents from yesterday and the film, Gangland:Race War, to answer this question.

How can we stop gang violence?

Step 1:

Go the website below to find the DBQ:

http://robertcottojr.googlepages.com/drugdbq

Step 2:

Complete the chart to find patterns in the document that answer thw question:

Step 3:

Be prepared to discuss the issue in class and take notes on your peers comments.

The Village: Deviance and Social Control

How does the village relate to modern America? What mechanisms of social control in the Village resemble those in our society? What activities were considered deviant in the Village? How did authorities achieve obedience from the the villagers? Why did the villagers conform with their peers in the village activities?

Discuss by responding to each other's comments.(Make at least three comments)

The Vice-Presidential Debate: The Middle Class, Taxes, and The Economy

After watching the candidates for Vice-President debate the various issues, make a decision about which candidate best addressed the issues of the Middle Class, Taxes, and The Economy. Cite at least three examples of what they from the debate that show support your claim. Here is the link to the transcript of the debate:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/debate.transcript/

Here is the link to the video:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/debate.transcript/#cnnSTCVideo

You may also cite the Hartford Courant which you read for our schema activator on Friday in class.

The Rich Get Fabulously Richer

Read the article, "The Rich Get Fabulously Richer." Write an outline for the article and bring it to class. Your outline will be used for our discussion about the article during class Thursday! Tomorrow in class we will be looking at several documents related to Social Stratification with a special focus on class.

Here is the link:

http://www.perfectlylegalthebook.com/Chapter3.pdf

Social Structure

This week we focused on issues of status, roles in society, types of society, and social structure. Based on the films we atched this week and your research, reflect on the following concepts:

What makes American society work?
What is the glue that holds America together?
What is the importance of status?
Which roles are vital for the maintenance of American society?

Refer to our lessons on:

Social structure is the interaction between people of different status and the roles that they perform.
Americans assign more status to people with more money.
A society can be understood by how its people make a living.
Societies generally into three categories: pre-industrial, post-industrial, industrial.

The films we watched were:

30 Days: Minimum Wage
Now on PBS: Taxing the Poor
Now on PBS: College Summit

Respond to the blog by Sunday evening 11:59 p.m.

Responding to Mr. Cotto's autobiography

Hello everybody,

In today's lesson, we discussed Mr. Cotto's socialization. You saw number of documents that related to Mr. Cotto's upbringing. You should have seen the four factors of personality at play: birth order, heredity, cultural environment, and parents. Below is a link to one of my drafts to the autobiography published in the book, Mi Voz, Mi Vida. I ask for your comments and thoughts, connections, advice, and reflections.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfdfqwjf_129xzmvsgp

In the end, would you say that "People are a product of their environment?" Next week we will be using a variety of research techniques to determine to what extent the four factors of personality matter for a person's socialization.