Sunday, October 28, 2012

What about all of the oppressed minorities in the US? How do these minorities bear on the notion of American exceptionalism? (updated)

Hi, this is the revised version I submitted to turnitin.com that (I think) we were supposed to post. 

-David Yuan

Today, I woke up to a perfect October day. The temperature was just right, a great relief from the sweltering heat just a few weeks ago. The crisp, clean, air opened up to a deep blue sky. The leaves, rustled slightly by the occasional gentle breeze, were a beautiful mix of red, green and orange, but had not yet begun to fall. I could already the taste the apple cider that would greet me at the breakfast table.
But then, I was reminded of what I don’t like about the fall. The sun was barely up. It wouldn’t stay very high, and by dinner, it would’ve been long gone. Before the end of the month, it might even snow, just like it did last year. Not even the crunchy kind you’d ski on or build a snowman with, but the dirty, mushy kind that results from partially melting. Oh, and is that a hurricane coming our way?
Yep, my life has been like that: a bunch of contradictions and double meanings. Nothing characterizes this more than the story of my uncle.
When I was small, Uncle Clarence, who was the younger brother of my dad, loved to tell me about the history of our people, and the history of America. He started with our roots in West Africa, to being captured and sold into slavery, to emancipation, segregation and finally civil rights. “Remember,” he always said “our nation has had a dark past, but the ability for it to improve, to boundless opportunity, is what makes America truly exceptional”.
More than once, I would ask him “Does that mean all white people were bad, Uncle Clarence?”
“Absolutely not,” he would reply every time. “Although slave owners and the Ku Klux Klan and a lot of other horrible people were white, many of the supporters of abolition and civil rights were white too. There are good people who are white and bad people who are white, just like there are good and bad people of all colors, black, brown, yellow, red, you name it.”
Uncle Clarence would never fail to me feel proud of my heritage and the exceptional people of America. But now, he’s in jail. And I don’t feel very good about America.
It is sad but simple: on a fateful day four years ago, his wife, my aunt Monica, and their baby son were out walking. And then, both of them were shot dead. In broad daylight. Just like that. They were so thoroughly dead that it wasn’t even worth calling an ambulance.
With the people closest to him gone at the prime of his life, Uncle Clarence was beyond broken. In the company of others, he had always managed to maintain a straight face. But everyone knew the pain he was going through. Not surprisingly, he started to do drugs: crack cocaine. Where we live, it is so readily available anyway.
Then, one day, Uncle Clarence was stopped by a state trooper on the highway. That trooper must have been in a particularly bad mood, because Uncle Clarence was merely doing 65 in a 55 mile per hour zone. He was sober at the time, but the trooper saw a Ziploc bag of yellowish white powder on the passenger seat. No questions were asked; he was arrested on the spot. What would’ve been simply a traffic ticket became a nightmare.
Too poor to afford an expensive lawyer that would have argued more for his case, Uncle Clarence, who never did anything to harm others, was sentenced 15 years in prison. On the other hand, they never found out who the murderer was.
With no family of his own anymore, nor any hope of starting anew, he treats me and my little sister as his own offspring. We were allowed only one visit since he went to prison. I remember how he looked drained and distressed from all these years of being locked up, but his eyes still shone with the same intensity. I still recall his last words to me before I left, just as he was being handcuffed again by the guards: “Don’t do drugs kid, but more importantly, if you somehow do, don’t get caught. That’s the worst part of it!” After that, he was dragged back into the wretched darkness of his cell…
Now, as I look outside the window during dinnertime, it is dark as pitch, just like I told you in the morning. I see dad watching the presidential debate on TV. We still have one of those old, bulky “tube” televisions, with rabbit ear antennas on the top. The candidates mostly talk about how the other can’t fix the economy, sprinkled with a little bashing of Iran, Israel, Syria and China, which all seem rather remote to me. “What about us?” I ask, somewhat angrily, “Obama is Black, I thought he cared!”
“He does,” mom reassures me after overhearing the question. “But can he really do anything? No. Work hard, my child. That’s the only way you can make a better life for yourself in America.”
“That’s right” I say, without really thinking, “that’s right.”



Statistics:

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6 comments:

  1. LilianOctober 29, 2012 at 11:44 AM

    Your narrative was well written and contained a lot of information as a well as a touching story about this boy’s uncle. I really enjoyed how you described the uncle’s story with such detail and really emphasized the unfairness of American law and the prejudice against certain races. There was one sentence, “And I don’t feel much good about America,” where I think the word “much” should be changed to “very”. Also, I thought the transition from the uncle’s sad story suddenly back to the present was slightly awkward. The sentence, “Now, I am back home from school, and done talking about my uncle” is an awkward transition into the last few paragraphs and could be changed to flow better. Perhaps, a sentence like “Deep in thought, I made my way downstairs into the living room, where my dad was watching the presidential debate on T.V.” would be a more fluid transition. Other than a couple of awkward sentence transitions, I think this narrative was very well written and brought across your point well.

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  2. UnknownOctober 31, 2012 at 7:43 AM

    The beginning of your story may seem unclear to the reader; it seems like you are writing a personal narrative about your own life and not that of a fictional character’s, and I did not realize this until you mentioned the character’s West African heritage. Despite that, I enjoy your introduction as it provides colorful, vivid imagery of everything going on and adds to a great setting for the story. I commend you for your research and presentation of these hard, painful facts of discrimination and minority oppression, and you bring out a lot of great points that strengthen your argument. There are several grammar/syntax errors however, such as “Uncle Clarence would never fail to [make] me feel proud”, etc. Proofreading is suggested. Also, like Lilian suggested, transition between events in your story seem awkward at times, so try to work on fluidity.

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  3. Samuel ChinNovember 1, 2012 at 5:49 PM

    You really got your point across about unfairness in America by using a realistic story that appeals to the reader's emotion. I think that the beginning of your story helped to relate the narrator to your reader's life by describing a setting that we know all too well, and then transitioning to the actual plot. I agree with Lillian that you emphasized the unfairness of the Uncle's situation. Especially with the phrase, "No questions were asked". However, like Brent said, I didn't know that the story was about an African-American until the reference to West Africa. The line "and by dinner, it would've been long gone" has a strange tense, since the narrator is in the morning(present) and dinner is presumably in the future, the choice of the word "would" is strange. Also, in the penultimate sentence of the penultimate paragraph, "seem" should be "seems" since "all" is singular. Overall, I enjoyed your essay, it was both emotional and informative at the same time.

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  4. UnknownNovember 2, 2012 at 8:40 AM

    David your essay brings up some very interesting ideas on two controversial topics of today. Drugs are widey misused, but you also bring up the point that thousands of Americans are unjustly put into prison. The major criticism I have (as others have noted) is the syntax of your essay. There are points in your essay where transitions are awkward, and tenses do not really mach. In a couple of cases, you use the phrase “now” and follow it by a verb in the past tense. By fixing small grammatical details such as this, you can increase the fluidity of your narrative. Otherwise, I enjoyed the risks you took with you ideas and the statistical bit at the end.

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  5. Diana GurvichNovember 2, 2012 at 11:53 AM

    David, I think you did a good job examining African Americans as an oppressed minority in the United States and the implications it has on them and on others in society. One of my favorite lines in this is what Uncle Clarence said in response to the narrator asking if all white people are bad. "...There are good people who are white and bad people who are white, just like there are good and bad people of all colors, black, brown, yellow, red, you name it." A small criticism of this statement is that you could remove the unnecessary comma after white and then put a colon after colors. I agree with the comments above that advise proofreading because a few sentences are a bit awkward. A specific sentence that hasn't been mentioned already is: "Where we live, it is so readily available anyway." While I understand your point, it was a little awkward to read it. Maybe you could change it to something like "In our neighborhood, it isn't difficult to acquire." All in all, I enjoyed reading your story. It provided insight to a situation that is foreign to me!

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  6. UnknownNovember 2, 2012 at 12:51 PM

    David, addressing topics as controversial as slavery, drugs, and racism all in one essay was a risk that I think you handled well. I agree with others that you should proofread your essay as there are some cases where grammar is out of line. As far as storyline goes - I enjoy the look into the life of Uncle Clarence - it really framed the issue of oppression in American society today. You go on further to expand the views that oppressed people have - an exceptional America gives hope to those who work for it. I think that you should expand upon Uncle Clarence's turmoil after his loved ones are killed - this would bring a new specificity into his life and how he is oppressed (as the murderer was never found). Also you could expand upon Uncle Clarence's viewpoints on America after the justice system failed him - this could provide a means of his continuing support of American exceptionalism or recanting his support. Overall great story!

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