RA2: Morgan

Title: "From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos"
Author: Music writer, and fan of Hip-Hop, Joan Morgan
Date: 2007
Topic: How sexism is used against women by Rap artists throughout their music lyrics, and why it shall be understood by the pointed out victims.
Analysis of Argument
Exigence: To give a deeper explanation of the rap misogyny that tends to hurt women by the vocabulary being used by rap artists specifically like “Bitches & Hos” referring to the women of society who once were respected by the male population not disrespected like they do up to date.
Intended Audience: General public, women of all kind, but primarily African-American women “Sista Friends” because they are the ones that grew up facing sexism more than any other race by being part of the African-American Rap generation.
Purpose: To inform other women about the truth behind the sexism usage in modern day music and to make it more understandable to the offended crowd.
Claim: Morgan claims Rap misogyny is a symptom of crisis throughout the black community, for which it should be confronted and understood by other sexism victims as to be a step for the lyric writers to heal their pain that both expresses and inflicts their emotions.
Main Evidence:

There is a usage of all three rhetorical appeals in this article. The author describes the modern black community, and how she is part of it as an African- American woman. Morgan mentions the struggle’s women like her have to face on a daily basis due to the lack of respect they receive by the black men in the Rap industry in this century. For example, she states “We have come to a point in our history, however, when black-on-black love- a love that’s survived slavery, lynching, segregation, poverty, and racism- is in serious danger.”(602)This is a serious problem for young black women because they are slowly losing their good aspects for black men due to the way they treat and identify their women. This is a crisis taking place for the black community in particularly, but as well to the general female public; however, she explains the pain and masquerading machismo young black males carry inside them and for which that is the reason sexism is is used in their lyrics to be able to express themselves.

The knowledge to this argument is based on how black males find themselves intending to love while they face battle in a war zone. For example, Morgan states “According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the leading cause of death among black men ages fifteen to twenty-four is homicide. The majority of them will die at the hands of other black men.”(602)This is an explanation why black men could be so angry and full of pain due to the experiences of life that they have to live by. As they experience terrible moments their pain ads up until it causes them to express it by writing it in songs which the tone could be offensive to others due to their anger.

Morgan also comments on her own feelings about the concerns she has regarding to the ways rap artists specifically like Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Ice cube, and The Notorious B.I.G define the women in the nation throughout their songs. She wants to get some answers to some questions she has. Morgan asks “I need to know why they are so angry at me. Why is disrespecting me one of the few things that make them feel like men?”(603)She is really desperate about finding out the reasons why her black male peers repeatedly insult women by calling them “Bitches or Hos” through their music even though she understands they are full of pain and anger.
My Response:
I believe anger and pain being carried inside someones body could be the reason for acting in a different way with society. Women were certainly disrespected throughout the lyrics of many rappers, but we never know what that person has been through for him to act in that manner. I agree with Morgan because I am part of the Hispanic community and we have many similarities to the black community. For example many of us men experience some of our friends deaths, drug abuse through out our family members, and we also live in a battlefield with our own people: Brown against Brown. We have a couple similarities and this can cause men to act in a angry way towards a crowd which is most often women for an unknown reason.  

Reader Response #2

 
Summary 
       In the article “Bros Before Hos”, by Michael Kimmel, the author researches and discovers the various cultural meanings to the “guy code”, which boys/men have been raised to fallow at a very early age. As Kimmel goes and investigates the different traits for the man policy “guy code" that the boys/men have been fallowing for decades: he recognized that the same rule for a guy is very alike to all other that apply; However he argues about how the homophobic acts by other peers reinforces the guy code at a supreme level.  He explains the roles of “The Gender Police” as he points out peers for always patrolling other peers to catch them on the act of something unmanly, so they can give whoever got caught negative insults for it; Moreover, Kimmel expresses how the characteristics of someone's persona and how it can define the level of manhood of that person to those so called “gender police.” For example how someone dresses, walks, and even what they eat, for they have some type of putdown towards the victim. Furthermore, Kimmel addresses how men are pressured to show no kind of emotions as they age. He explains specifically on fathers who try to manipulate their son’s feelings to not cross the manhood boundaries, and to always be tough as young as 3 years old. He states in the article about a father who took his son to the barber shop, and as the barber prepared and started the treatment using heat and chemicals that burn; the little boy started to cry by nervous reactions, but the barber instead insults him by telling the boy’s father “This boy is a wimp”.(615)
Context 
       The setting of this context is to try to inform and argue against the general public’s point of view of Manhood. The passage intents to make the reader question himself, Do all these rules of being a man necessarily have to be enforced onto men at their childhood? Michael Kimmel takes homophobia to the counterpoint, because it is a main concern he has about how men are so used to being homophobic. Homophobia fills a lot of the gaps in between the role of the “guy code” by making the fallowed policy so powerful to be able to manipulate over the boys minds. Kimmel intents to persuade the reader to closer attention to the traditional male-figure that they were raised to be and how it much it actually has changed over the years.  
Self-opinion
       Men have always fallowed the same road to teach their young one’s how to be a man. I certainly believe all of the rules in the guy code mentioned by Kimmel, have actually been enforced into most of the boys worldwide as they grew up. I experienced most of these rules throughout my childhood, and I had some different ones as well, because of my Ethnicity and were I was born-and-raised; For example, growing up with my older brothers they would tell me: "it's either him or you; don't like a certain color or number; never smile to other guys-that shows weakness, don't ever fear someone; real men smoke marijuana." By growing up listening to all my brothers' aspects that they would soak in my brain, I always thought I was taking the right decisions as I would follow their rules as if they were the law. Homophobic comments have always been present since I can remember, and I agree with another meaning existing for calling people faggots instead of referring to a homosexual faggot.  For example, Kimmel states a quote from Eminem, while he is replying about using the word faggot against guys, he states “The lowest degrading thing you can say to a man when you’re battling him is to call him a faggot and try to take to take away his manhood”.(612) I agree with this because I can recall many occasions when I got called a "fagot", and I believe it was to insult me and make me react to a fight due to taking away my manhood thru a word. 

"FINAL POLISH" Prop 30 OP-ED

Alex U.

10-4-2012

Inst. S. Knapp

English 1A

                        A Tax Hike For The Better or For The Worse?

As we get closer to the November ballot, Proposition 30 has become a big decision to Californians because time is running out; however, voters have less than a month to decide whether to vote yes or no on the measure. The proposition is described as the education and public safety act which the education programs of K-12 and Higher Education like community colleges will benefit from. This will guarantee on-going funds for public safety as well for resources such as Police, Fire, Jailing, Courts, Social Services, Water Safety, and Health Services. The actions taking effect if this measure passes will be raising personal income taxes by a percentage of 1-3 towards the residents of our state  who are making over 500k annually as a couple, or over 250k as single taxpayers for a period of seven years. It also includes increasing the sales tax by a quarter cent for all purchases inside the state of California for the next four years. The estimated amount of money that will be raised annually is about 5.4 billion dollars through 2012-13 and through 2016-17 with smaller amounts through 2011-12, 2017-18, and 2018-19.  The revenues would be divided by 89% going towards K-12, and 11% to higher education such as community colleges. Furthermore, Governor Jerry Brown has been speaking and threatening the state residents about the outcomes that would take effect if voters reject the proposition which are trigger cuts of about 5 billion dollars on K-12 and higher education. This is a challenging vote because many voters feel like the Governor is giving them no choice by saying “it’s ether yes or will cut that money from schools.” If this measure passes it will create some problems for the high income families by having to pay more in their personal income taxes, and as well to lower income families by paying more in sales tax all year round. I believe the problem to our state budget is the mismanaging of our state money due to the Politicians greed.

On the contrary, arguments against this proposition are very common because of many negativisms that rely on the approval of this measure. According to the Official Voter Guide of California, they state that “Prop.30 allows the politicians to play a ‘shell game’ instead of providing new funding for schools.” They also indicate that even the California School Boards Association stated that “the governor’s initiative does not provide new funding for schools.”

They claim that the politicians can take existing funds from schools and use it for other debts they have, and then use the new funds to backfill the existing funds they had withdrawn. In other words after they collect the revenues from the proposition they will just fill the hole that they already had dug. According to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, they indicated a quote from a featured article from The Wall Street Journal stating that they revealed a secret Politicians are trying to hide. They state “The dirty little secret is…new revenues are needed to backfill the insolvent teachers’ pension fund.”  By this situation taking action no new funds will be added to the budget. Voters voting yes on this proposition are taking a risk to this gamble the Governor has brought to us. There is no guarantee that all the money being collected will actually get to the classrooms of our schools.

Why doesn’t the government stop the threats of taking money out on schools if his proposition doesn’t pass? I believe because he is being selfish and phrasing himself as “it’s my way or the highway”. He knows he can convince Californians to approve his measure by announcing the money will go to schools when it won’t. Why doesn’t he threat to take out the money on the bullet train approval which is far less more important than our schools? Because he knows voters won’t really care about the bullet train, and they will reject the proposition. According to the LA Times, the cost for the bullet train project was estimated to be 98.5 billion dollars. These 98.5 billion dollars could be used in many different education resources instead of a train; for instance, by dividing that money into 30 schools each school would receive about 3.2 billion dollars. That’s more than half of what the trigger cuts are.  There are many other options of transportation, and much less of education. Voters should be more aware of the way the money in our state is being managed. Politicians want this measure to pass, so they can pocket some extra money for their out of control spending!

We all know how dirty and corrupted our politicians are, not to mention when Governor Brown announced the closure of 70 state parks statewide. According to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, they state that after the announcement of the park’s disclosure, there was a discovery that the Parks Department had been hiding 54 million dollars behind them. Those 54 million dollars is a large portion of funds which could have been used to keep those parks open, but since we have these selfish politicians they can always try their best at overplaying the public by saying what the public is expected wanting to hear. This makes me ask myself what else have or in fact are hiding from us, and makes me not trust them with proposition 30.

If this proposition passes the wealthy people of our state would not be too happy with the IRS, because of all the hard earned money they have to pay extra. Some of this money they have to pay could be from overtime hours they spent on their job, and by giving it away to the government won’t feel too good for them. I know if I was a millionaire I would not like to pay more money than I already have been paying, and especially if I know the money won’t even go towards the claimed destination. This will cause argument wars between the taxpayer’s and the government regarding their increase in taxes. Small businesses will also face some negative outcomes if the proposition is approved. By the measure being approved it will make the business owners to pay more in their income tax, and maybe even close because of not enough profit that will be left after these increases take action. This can also make employer’s lay off some employee’s, and that will make unemployment rate rise. Unemployment rate in California is very high in these times, and by the rate increasing it will cause more chaos. By the sales tax going up as well they will have to lower the prices on certain items to try to get customers, because people will be trying their best at bargaining, and business owners want customers to choose their product.

This proposition shouldn’t be approved because California is the state with the highest sales tax already. California has a present rate of 7.25% while the state of Colorado has a 2.9%: This is almost a 4% difference. California also has the nation’s highest Welfare receivers, and their income has been cut drastically from a single decade ago. This will affect families receiving welfare because they don’t even get enough income to be affording all their expenses, and by sales tax increasing it will cause them to suffer more financial problems. Not only welfare receivers would be affected, but the general public as well. There are a lot of people out there who make enough money to barely make it day by day, and I am one of them. I am a freshmen college student with a family like many others. I work two part time jobs, go to school part time and I’ll say it is not easy affording everything, and by raising sales tax it will cause an impact on me and others who have a similar life style.

A quarter cent might not sound like a lot but in the aftermath it adds up to everything you purchase in one year and that’s just on top of the existing amount of sales tax. For example all the gas, food, school supplies, clothes, diapers, wipes and all the other unlisted expenses. That’s not listing bills like rent, insurance, phone line, utility’s and many more. Most of us, and probably all as students don’t make over 250k a year, so we don’t pay attention to the income tax raise, but the sales and use tax is what we should focus on.

According to Official Voters Guide of Californiahttp://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/

According to Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Associationhttp://www.hjta.org/press-releases/pr-new-radio-spot-highlights-state-parks-scandal-what-else-are-they-keeping-you

According to LA Timeshttp://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/01/local/la-me-high-speed-rail-20111101

Final Draft

Alex U.

10-4-2012

Inst. S. Knapp

English 1A

                                   A Change For The Better or For The Worst?

As we get closer to the November ballot proposition 30 has become a big decision to Californian’s, because the time is running out; however, voters have less than a month to decide whether to vote yes or no on the measure. The proposition is described as the education and public safety act which the education programs of K-12 and community colleges will benefit from. This will guarantee on-going funds for public safety as well, for resources such as Police, Fire, Jailing, Courts, Social Services, Water Safety, and Health Services. The actions taking effect if this measure passes will be raising personal income taxes by a percentage of 1-3 towards the residents whom are making over 500k annually as a couple, or over 250k as single taxpayers for a period of seven years. It also includes increasing the sales tax by a quarter cent for all purchases inside the state of California for the next four years. The estimated amount of money that will be raised annually is about 5.4 billion dollars through 2012-13 and through 2016-17 with smaller amounts through 2011-12, 2017-18, and 2018-19 Furthermore, the estimated revenues would be divided by 89% going towards K-12, and 11% to higher education such as community colleges. Governor Jerry Brown has been speaking and threatening the state residents about the outcomes that would take effect if voters reject the proposition which are trigger cuts of about 5 billion dollars on the K-12 and higher education. This is a challenging vote because many voters feel like the Governor is giving them no choice by saying “it’s earthier yes or will cut that money from schools.” If this measure passes it will create some problems for the high income families by having to pay more in their personal income taxes as well as to lower income families by having to pay more in sales tax all year round.

On the contrary, arguments against this proposition are very common because of many negativisms that rely on the approval of this measure. According to the Official Voter Guide of California, they state that “Prop.30 allows the politicians to play a “shell game” instead of providing new funding for schools.” They also indicate that even the California School Boards Association stated that “the governor’s initiative does not provide new funding for schools.”

 They claim that the politicians can take existing funds from schools and use it for other debts they have, and then use the new funds to fill the existing funds they had withdrawn. In other words after they collect the revenues from the proposition they will just fill the hole that they already had dug. According to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, they indicated a quote from a featured article from The Wall Street Journal stating that they revealed a secret politician’s are trying to hide. They state “The dirty little secret is…new revenues are needed to backfill the insolvent teachers’ pension fund.”  By this situation taking action no new funds will be added to the budget. Voters voting yes on this proposition are taking a risk to this gamble the Governor has brought to us. There is no guarantee that all the money being collected will actually get to the classrooms of our schools.

Why doesn’t the government stop the threatening of taking money out on schools if his proposition doesn’t pass? Because he is being selfish and phrasing himself as “it’s earthier my way or the highway”. He knows he can convince Californian’s to approve his measure by announcing the money will go to schools when it won’t. Why doesn’t he threat to take out the money on the bullet train approval which is far less more important than our schools? Because he knows voters won’t really care about the bullet train, and they will reject the proposition. According to the LA Times, they estimated the cost for the bullet train project which will be 98.5 billion dollars. These 98.5 billion dollars could be used in many different education resources instead of a train; for instance, we have many other options of transportation, and much less of education.  Politicians want this measure to pass so they can pocket some extra money for their out of control spending!

We all know how dirty and corrupted our politicians are. Not to mention when Governor Brown announced the closure of 70 state parks statewide. According to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, they state that after the announcement of the park’s disclosure, there was a discovery that the Parks Department had been hiding 54 million dollars behind them. Those 54 million dollars is a large portion of funds which could have been used to keep those parks open, but since we have these selfish politicians they can always try their best at overplaying the public by saying what the public is expected to want to hear. This makes me ask what else have or in fact are hiding from us, and makes me not trust them with proposition 30.

If this proposition passes the wealthy people of our state would not be too happy with the IRS, because of all the hard earned money they have to pay extra. Some of this money they have to pay could be from overtime hours they spent on their job, and by giving it away to the government won’t feel too good for them. I know if I was a millionaire I would not like to pay more money than I already have been paying, and especially if I know the money won’t even go towards the claimed destination. This will cause argument wars between the taxpayer’s and the government regarding their increase in taxes. Small businesses will also face some negative outcomes if the proposition is approved. By the measure being approved it will make the business owners to pay more in their income tax, and maybe even close because of the profit money that will be left after these increases take action. On the other hand, this can cause the employers to lay off some employees, and that will make unemployment rate rise. Unemployment rate in California is very high in these times, and by the rate increasing it will cause more chaos. By the sales tax going up as well they will have to lower the prices to try to get customers, because people will be trying their best at bargaining, and business owners want customers to choose their product.

Another reason why this proposition shouldn’t be approved is because California is the state with the highest sales tax already. California has a rate of 7.25% while the state of Colorado has a 2.9%. This is almost a 4% difference.  Also California has the nation’s highest Welfare receivers, and their income has been cut drastically from a single decade ago. This will affect families receiving welfare because they don’t even get enough income to be affording all their expenses, and by sales tax increasing it will cause them to suffer more financial problems. I am a freshmen college student with a family like many others and I’ll say it is not easy affording everything and by raising sales tax will cause an impact on us as well. A quarter cent might not sound like a lot but in the aftermath it adds up to everything you purchase in one year and that’s just on top of the existing amount of sales tax. For example all the gas, food, school supplies, clothes, diapers, wipes and all the other unlisted expenses. Most of us, and probably all don’t make 250k a year, so we don’t pay attention to the income tax raise, but the sales and use tax is what we should focus on.

According to Official Voters Guide of Californiahttp://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/ 

According to Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Associationhttp://www.hjta.org/press-releases/pr-new-radio-spot-highlights-state-parks-scandal-what-else-are-they-keeping-you

According to LA Timeshttp://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/01/local/la-me-high-speed-rail-20111101 

Rough Draft

Alex U.

10-4-2012

Inst. S. Knapp

English 1A

                                                 NO ON PROPOSITION 30!

            As we get closer to the November ballot, proposition 30 has become a big decision to Californian’s, because the time is running out, and they have to choose to earthier vote yes or no against the proposition. The proposition is described as the education and public safety act which the education programs of K-12 and community colleges will benefit from. This will also guarantee funds for public safety such as Police, Fire, Jailing, Courts, Social Services, Water Safety, and Health Services.  The actions taking effect if this measure passes will be raising personal income taxes by a percentage of 1-3 towards the residents whom are making over 500k annually as a couple, or over 250k as single taxpayers for a period of seven years. It also includes increasing the sales tax by a quarter cent for all purchases inside the state of California for the next four years. The estimated amount of money that will be raised annually is about 5.4 billion dollars. The way they will split the revenues will be 89% will go towards K-12 and 11% to higher education.  Governor Jerry Brown has been speaking and threatening the state residents about the outcomes that would take effect if voters reject the proposition which are trigger cuts of about 5 billion dollars on the K-12 and higher education. This is a challenging vote because many voters feel like the Governor is giving them no choice by saying “it’s earthier yes or will cut that money from schools.” If this measure passes it will create some problems for the high income families by having to pay more in their personal income taxes as well as to lower income families by having to pay more in sales tax all year round.

              Arguments against this proposition are very common because of many negativisms that rely on the approval of this measure. According to the official voter guide of California, they state that “Prop.30 allows the politicians to play a “shell game” instead of providing new funding for schools.” They claim that the politicians can take existing funds from schools and use it for other debts they have, and after they collect the revenues from the proposition they will just fill the hole that they already had dug. By this situation taking action no new funds will be added, because of this gamble people are voting for. There is no guarantee that all the money being collected will actually get to the classrooms of our schools. Why doesn’t the government stop the threatening of taking money out on schools if his proposition doesn’t pass? Because he is being selfish and phrasing himself as “it’s earthier my way or the highway”. He knows he can convince Californian’s to approve his measure by announcing the money will go to schools when it won’t. Why doesn’t he threat to take out the money on the bullet train approval which is far less more important than our schools? Because he knows voters won’t really care about the bullet train, and they will reject the proposition. Politicians want this measure to pass so they can pocket some extra money for their out of control spending! Even the California School Boards Association stated that “the governor’s initiative does not provide new funding for schools” According to the voter guide.  There are no real reforms to support the money will be spent were the politicians claim to. As the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association has noted that they featured an article claiming The Wall Street Journal revealed “The dirty little secret is…new revenues are needed to backfill the insolvent teachers’ pension fund.”  We all know how dirty and corrupted our politicians are. Not to mention when Gov. Brown announced the closure of 70 state parks statewide and later resident’s discovered that the Parks Department had been hiding 54 million dollars behind them. Those 54 million dollars is a large portion of funds which could have been used to keep those parks open, but since we have these selfish politicians they can always try their best at overplaying the public by saying what the public is expected to want to hear.

If this proposition passes the wealthy people of our state would not be too happy with the IRS, because of all the hard earned money they have to pay extra. Some of this money they have to pay could be from overtime hours they spent on their job, and by giving it away to the government won’t feel too good for them. I know if I was a millionaire I would not like to pay more money than I already have been paying, and especially if I know the money won’t even go towards the claimed destination. This will cause argument wars between the taxpayer’s and the government regarding their increase in taxes. Small businesses will also face some negative outcomes if the proposition is approved. By the measure being approved it will make the business owners to pay more in their income tax, and maybe even close because of the profit money that will be left after these increase governmental deductions. In this case it is possible for the employers to lay off some employees and that will make unemployment rate rise. Also by the sales tax going up they will have to lower the prices to try to get customers, because people will be trying their best at bargaining, and business owners want customers to choose their product.

Another reason why this proposition shouldn’t be approved is because California is the state with the highest sales tax already. Also California has the nation’s highest Welfare receivers, and their income has been cut drastically from a single decade ago. This will affect families receiving Welfare because they don’t even get enough income to be affording all their expenses, and by sales tax increasing it will cause them to suffer more financial problems. I am a freshmen college student with a family like many others and I’ll say it is not easy affording everything and by raising sales tax will cause an impact on us as well. A quarter cent might not sound like a lot but in the aftermath it adds up to everything you purchase in one year and that’s just on top of the existing amount of sales tax. For example all the gas, food, school supplies, clothes, diapers, wipes and all the other unlisted expenses. Most of us, and probably all don’t make 250k a year, so we don’t pay attention to the income tax raise, but the sales and use tax is what we should focus on.