- Take a few minutes to reflect on how your thoughts about the American Dream have changed.
- Write a blog post on whether or not you think the wealth gap has affected the American Dream and why our society still or no longer believes in it.
- If you have any questions that you would like to be answered, please write them in your blog post and we will answer them on Wednesday.
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Blog Post American Dream
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Park Avenue: Money, Power, and the American Dream—Why Poverty? Films On Demand. Films Media Group, 2012. Web. 3 Mar. 2016.
Imperative Summary This is an interpretive summary because this film has many important points and opinions toward the attainability of the American Dream. This form of summary gave me the ability to both summarize the documentary as well as share my feelings and opinions towards the topic of the American Dream through political corruption. To most people, when they hear the name Park Avenue, they automatically think about the affluent New York City neighborhood on the Upper East Side, but there is another Park Avenue just across the river. The Park Avenue on the island of Manhattan is home to some of the wealthiest people in the world, but Park Avenue in the South Bronx is home to some of the poorest people in the world. According to the American Dream, it is possible for anyone living in the South Bronx Park Avenue to one day live in the prestigious Manhattan Park Avenue. All it supposedly takes is hard work and determination which is how the Manhattan Park Avenue residents got to where they are. The discouraging truth is that the chances of someone from the South Bronx moving across the river to the Upper East Side through the American Dream is extremely unlikely. According to Academy Award winning filmmaker and director Alex Gibney, he believes that the wealth gap between the rich and poor in the United States is too large and will only continue to grow, making the American Dream relatively unattainable in today’s day and age. But the main question in the documentary is, why is the American Dream no longer attainable in the United States? The wealthy use their fortune in the political system to “rig the rules in their favor”. These wealthy people use their big money to back and support political leaders that in return pass laws and push initiatives that benefit their supporters. This political corruption causes extreme inequality between the rich and poor. The political corruption is negatively affecting the future generation, compromising their education, health, and idea of success. Jagger, Karuna. "The Race and Gender Wealth Gap." Re-imagine. Web. 7 Mar. 2016. <http://www.reimaginerpe.org/node/2815>. True Summary Focusing on the gender and racial wealth gap that is present in the United States, the text provides many statistics and observations that connect to this issue. In the article with absolutely no bias, it informs its audience of the numbers behind the economy. It is described that families of color own only a fraction of what white families own, as small as one-tenth! The article then proceeds to discuss the effects of this unfortunate lack of wealth, regarding low income and poverty as its primary effects. The text continues to share statistics regarding the unbalance of wealth among races. The enormous difference in net-worth and the amount of people (race specific) that own a house and stocks are examples, all of which having positive outcomes for white people and negative for people of color. The text then transitions toward the unbalance of wealth among genders. As it did with the racial wealth gap, it is described in a broad sense, stating the obvious of its inequality, though continues with more depth; it provides statistics regarding again: stocks, house ownership and other financial inferiorities, though this time with the context comparing genders. I specifically chose to write true summary because of the text’s structure. Its primary purpose was to inform its audience, so it attempted to make its topics and subtopics exceedingly easy to spot and prevent the reader from running off on any tangents. Also, there is no bias present in the text and is purely informative, therefore it doesn’t in any way need to be judged. Sugrue, Thomas J. "A House Divided." The Washington Monthly. N.p., Jan. 2013. Web. 05 Mar. 2016. True Summary I chose to do a true summary, because although I analyze and relate the information from the article back to our main research question, I mainly state the information that the author presented. In Thomas J Sugrue, A House Divided, the issue of inequality of wealth between races is addressed and multiple reasoning’s for its existence are explored. In his article, Sugrue talks about his own experiences of his family moving from an ordinary neighborhood to a more segregated wealthier neighborhood. He describes selling his house to an African American family, who years later, ended up losing value in their home. In our country, our biggest means of an asset is real estate. During the 1950s, the trend of “white flight” began, where white families would move out of neighborhoods and cities containing more African American families (Sugrue). Not only did this worsen the issue of segregation, but it had a negative impact on the remaining families and their assets. The tax base decreased and the requirement for city services increased which caused a series of unfortunate events, including higher property tax rates (Sugrue). The city and neighborhoods and schools began to worsen with age (Sugrue). Investors allowed for the properties to deteriorate as their values went down (Sugrue). After Sugrue, researched about the house he sold to the African American family, he discovered that the value of the house had decreased by 60% from when they had first bought it. From his research, Sugrue has many arguments for why there is such a tremendous difference in the wealth gap between races. Much of his arguments originate from historic racial issues such as the exclusion of all blacks from the Homestead Act in 1862, redlining of neighborhoods and more (Sugrue). One big issue stems from the 2007, sub-prime mortgage crisis, which worsened the wealth gap between races. In this crisis, banks offered sub-prime loans to individuals who did not qualify for loans, these were targeted to minority groups. It has been shown, that half of the loans offered to African Americans in 2006 were sub-prime loans (Sugrue). As homes began to foreclose, the value of the neighborhood and houses within the neighborhoods began to decrease. This meant that the families that took out this sub-prime loan were paying more for their home than its actual value. One can see how this is an issue since one’s assets are invested in their homes. Sugrue provides a shocking actuality to his readers, that the racial wealth gap has not actually improved over the years, but has only worsened. Our society today has the ingrained belief in the American Dream and that anyone can achieve success with enough effort. Yet, you have these families that are not able to get out of the poverty they have been placed into for generations. Our belief in meritocracy and the idea that anyone can make it does not allow us to see the abiding issue of the wealth gap and particularly for minorities. Collins, C, & Yeskel, F 2000, 'The Meaning of the Growing Wage and Wealth Gap', Tikkun, 15, 3, p. 55, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 3 March 2016. True Summary I chose to write a true summary due to the fact that this text was primarily written to provide facts and information on the wealth gap in America. The text lacks any obvious bias from the authors and therefore doesn’t need to be judged. The text can easily be understood by a brief summary that captures the main points along with a few key supportive ideas that go more in depth into the issue of the U.S. economy. Collins and Yeskel inform their audience that the U.S. economy is helping the rich become wealthier, while allowing the poor to fall deeper into poverty. To do this, the authors examine the history of our country and the latest financial trends to explain that the wealth gap between wealthy and poor has been continuously growing since 1970. After they compare the wealthiest and the poorest populations in America, they also look at the difference in CEO’s salary versus employee pay and how this has created both a concentration of wealth but also a concentration of power in our society. Today, the ideas of consumerism and commercialism have trumped community. To conclude, they appeal to readers by exploring the current efforts in diminishing this wealth gap and how, as ordinary Americans, we can fight for financial equality. The text begins as a broad issue and narrows down to the issue’s effects on the individual reader. Not only does the text analyze every aspect of the growing wealth gap, but it looks into the future of our country to predict possible issues and consequences of our current actions. Kristof, Nicholas. "America’s Stacked Deck." The New York Times. The New York Times, 17 Feb. 2016. Web. 03 Apr. 2016. True Summary The document I choose to summarize was a New York Times Piece titled “Americas Stacked Deck”. This article focuses on explaining the wealth gap and relating it to the presidential elections that are coming up. It states how the deck is stacked against those in the lower class, which may explain some of the extreme views present in this election. It also explains how scapegoats, such as refuges, have been used to rationalize this inequality to an outside source. The article also states some statistics that highlight the repercussions of economic disparity. Such statistics state “A dumb rich kid is now more likely to graduate from college than a smart poor kid, according to Robert Putnam of Harvard University. Another: The 20 wealthiest Americans, a group that would fit comfortably inside a luxury private jet bound for a private Caribbean island, are worth more than the poorer half of the American population, according to a recent report from the Institute for Policy Studies. Forbes’s wealthiest 100 are worth as much as all 42 million African-Americans, the report says.” Finally, the document goes on to talk about the role of lobbyists in supporting the Presidential candidates and how this may lead to corruption. Micaela Gotfredson Tyler Andrews Paloma Roberts Buceta Ava Welch Maddie Mcgregor Jagger, Karuna. "The Race and Gender Wealth Gap." Re-imagine. Web. 7 Mar. 2016. <http://www.reimaginerpe.org/node/2815>.
True Summary Focusing on the gender and racial wealth gap that is present in the United States, the text provides many statistics and observations that connect to this issue. In the article with absolutely no bias, it informs its audience of the numbers behind the economy. It is described that families of color own only a fraction of what white families own, as small as one-tenth! The article then proceeds to discuss the effects of this unfortunate lack of wealth, regarding low income and poverty as its primary effects. The text continues to share statistics regarding the unbalance of wealth among races. The enormous difference in net-worth and the amount of people (race specific) that own a house and stocks are examples, all of which having positive outcomes for white people and negative for people of color. The text then transitions toward the unbalance of wealth among genders. As it did with the racial wealth gap, it is described in a broad sense, stating the obvious of its inequality, though continues with more depth; it provides statistics regarding again: stocks, house ownership and other financial inferiorities, though this time with the context comparing genders. I specifically chose to write true summary because of the text’s structure. Its primary purpose was to inform its audience, so it attempted to make its topics and subtopics exceedingly easy to spot and prevent the reader from running off on any tangents. Also, there is no bias present in the text and is purely informative, therefore it doesn’t in any way need to be judged. -Tyler Andrews |
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