Biography of the Ku Klux Klan Essay

Biography of the Ku Klux Klan Essay Free Online Research Papers Mark Twain once wrote, â€Å"The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.† This quote means so much by saying so little. What he means by this is that all history that has ever been recorded has been done so with prejudice. In the early days it would have been more towards the European immigrants, the 19th century would have been more prejudice towards blacks and slaves, and in modern days it is more towards the Mexican immigrants. Some groups, however, have not changed their prejudice outlook along with history. The Ku Klux Klan is one of them. Throughout the course of history, the Ku Klux Klan, more commonly known as the KKK, has been one of the largest as well as one of the most outspoken groups against race and religion. The first organized Klan first appeared in 1866, soon after the culmination of the Civil War. It was structured by veterans of the Confederate Army, and attracted a large group of followers. In its early days, though, the Klan was not merely an anti-black group. They were focused as much on putting down freed slaves as they were on intimidating Northern businessmen and Southern republicans, killing 1300 republican voters in 1868 alone. This first wave was stopped by Ulysses S. Grant in the early 70s by the Civil Rights Act of 1871. It had already begun to die out, though (Ku). Many people were glad to see this group go, but unfortunately, in the early 20th century it made a sweeping comeback. The new Klan was not quite the same, though. Founded in 1915 by William Joseph Simmons, the Second Ku Klux Klan was a formal membership organization (Ku). It had both a national and a state structure, and would pay men all over the country to organize their own chapters. The success of the new KKK was wildly unexpected. In the 20’s, 15% of the nations eligible members belonged to the Klan (Ku). The second KKK preached more about racism, anti-Catholicism, nativism, and anti-Semitism. Existing more in the South and Midwest than anywhere else, the Klan’s membership exceeded 4 million at times, and in some areas consisted of up to 40% of the eligible male population (Ku). The Klan really started to take control in the 1920’s. Elected officials with KKK ties controlled Tennessee, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Oregon. Many Southern legislatures were also Klan influenced (Ku). In 1924, the Klan secretly tried to take over Anaheim, California. They somehow took over the City Council without revealing that any of them were Klansmen, but were then voted out by a recall election. Later in 1924, at the Democratic National Convention in New York City, the Klan pitted William McAdoo against New York Governor Al Smith, a Catholic (Ku). After much deliberation, both men backed out of the running, giving the Klan a supposed success. They no longer had the unwanted candidate in the running, and temporarily had no worry of their group’s elimination. On the nation’s birth later that year, there was an enormous gathering in New Jersey, where Klansmen burned crosses and effigies of Smith to celebrate their victory (Ku). Alabama was one of the states which had much political pressure from the Klan. Differing from the majority of KKK groups around America, the Alabama organization also had genuine political dreams, not just racial hatred. The Alabama Klansmen were advocates of better public schools, effective prohibition enforcement, expanded road construction, and other progressive political measures. By 1925, the Klan had become a powerful political figure in the state. Hugo Black was elected senator in 1926 and later appointed to the Supreme Court; Bibb Graves, a former chapter head, won the governors office and later became one of the most progressive governors in Alabama’s history (Ku). Throughout his term, he pushed for increased education funding, better public health, new highway construction, and pro-labor legislation. Unfortunately, this gave Klan members a sense of unjust power. They committed many crimes of both physical and mental terror over the course of a few years. Finally, a c onservative named Grover C. Hall Sr. started a counterattack. He attacked the Klan for their intolerance to race and religion through editorials and articles published in his Montgomery Advertiser. Hall was later awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his efforts. In 1928, the state voted for Catholic Al Smith for president and by 1930, the Klan of Alabama’s membership had dropped to under six thousand (Ku). After the Alabama collapse, as well as the rape of Madge Oberholtzer by David Stephenson – the Grand Dragon of Indiana, as well as 14 other states – Klan membership began to drop rapidly (Ku). By the 1930s, the Klan had begun to drop out of political view and was losing everything. In 1939, Grand Wizard Hiram Evans sold the Klan to James Colescott and Samuel Green (Ku). Colescott’s association with Nazi-sympathizer groups further damaged the Klan. Involvement in the 1943 Detroit Race Riot’s as well as efforts to disrupt the American war effort in World War II caused great government grief. In 1944, the IRS filed a report of $685,000 in back taxes against the Klan, which forced Colescott to dissolve the organization later that year (Ku). Although the Klan was no longer an official organization after the 40’s, association continues today in small remaining groups. Membership went from more than one in 30 people in 1920 to less than one in 100,000 people in 2005 (Census). Since its elimination, the Klan has been involved in many brutal incidents, including the bombing of an Alabama church, which killed four young girls, the murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner in Mississippi, and a mass school bus bombing in Michigan, to stop desegregation of schools. â€Å"Today the only known former member of the Klan to hold a Federal office in the United States is Senator Robert Byrd, who says he ‘deeply regrets’ joining the Klan over half a century ago, when he was about 24 years old. There are currently no known members of the Klan who also hold a Federal office,†(Ku). The Ku Klux Klan has played an immensely important part in the development of America. Although not necessarily a good role, they d id show America what racism can do. They encouraged many to join them, but turned even more against them by showing how ruthless racism could become. On looking back, the lessons the Klan has taught America about how racism hurts everyone are very valuable and will not soon be forgotten.  Ku Klux Klan. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 16 Apr 2006, 16:50 UTC. 16 Apr 2006, 22:18 . Census of United States. US Census Bureau. 2000. April 12th, 2006 . Research Papers on Biography of the Ku Klux Klan Essay19 Century Society: A Deeply Divided EraWhere Wild and West MeetThe Effects of Illegal ImmigrationCanaanite Influence on the Early Israelite ReligionQuebec and CanadaThe Relationship Between Delinquency and Drug UseMarketing of Lifeboy Soap A Unilever ProductAssess the importance of Nationalism 1815-1850 EuropeInfluences of Socio-Economic Status of Married MalesBringing Democracy to Africa

Changing the Electoral College Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Changing the Electoral College - Essay Example Electoral College is a process in which different executives are selected; this is done by the people of the state such that they choose a number of persons classified as electors. Further it is described that the elector is the one who participates in the electing of the executive. Why it is called as an Electoral College is because all these electors work as a unit in determining the executive. Thus in the early 1800's, this term Electoral College came into common usage as the informal label for the group of citizens selected to cast votes for President and Vice President. Selecting the Electors is an important task to be understood. However in the United States this process for selecting electors varies throughout. Usually, the political parties name electors at their State party conventions or by a central vote from the designated committee. Electors are often chosen to identify their service and commitment to their political party. The Electors may be State elected officials, party leaders, or even those person who have a political affiliation of some sort. Next the voters in each State opt for the electors on the day of the general election. As the procedure is different in each state therefore the electors' names may or may not be shown on the ballot below the name of the candidates running for President. Past Present Contrast In the present circumstances the Electoral College certainly operates in a different civilization from the one that present in 1787. Nevertheless the Electoral College has exposed an astounding capability to adapt to modern-day America. It may occasionally function in a different way than expected, but it still serves the political goals it was anticipated to serve. In truth, its process in modern times may be yet more valuable. Critics of the "Electoral College" charge that the country's presidential election procedure does more to constrict the rights of individuals than to shelter federalism. In this framework, they often refer to the winner-take-all system regulated by most states, claiming that it causes the votes of several individuals to be wasted. The 2000 election dispute As this dispute goes, it could be seen that a Texan who voted for Al Gore in the 2000 election wasted his ballot for the reason that George W. Bush was awarded the state's complete slate of electors due to the "winner-take-all" regime. In a direct accepted ballot vote, critics note, these votes would not have been wasted, they could have instead been integrated in the final national tally for Gore. Such points of views, however, are a bit untruthful. These votes were not wasted. They were merely transmitted on the losing side of a popular vote inside the state. For this argument, if the 2000 election had been carried out based on nationwide popular vote totals only, would people assert that any vote for George W. Bush was wasted just because Al Gore won the popular vote Surely this would not have been the case as the votes for Bush were cast in an attempt to win. Presidential Elections The main outcome of America's presidential election progression is to safeguard the liberty of individuals mainly those in small states and

The Government should shouldn't provide free university education for Essay

The Government should shouldn't provide free university education for everyone - Essay Example Education also empowers an individual to become functional in society, to become socially mobile and to be able to contribute to the greater good of society. An ignorant person who knows nothing cannot contribute to society because he or she lacks the knowledge and skills to become productive. Finally, education is a ticket towards success. A degree may not be necessary but a good education is a ticket towards success especially in today’s knowledge base economy. An ignorant person could never succeed today because everything today is based on knowledge and skills. He or she could never find a job or start a business when he or she is ignorant. It also serves the government well when education becomes a right and universal. It will have an educated and highly skilled workforce that could create or work for an industry that could generate revenue for the government. People are also more civilized because they are educated and therefore create a more humane society and ultimately, government contributes to the betterment of human race by making education a right and

Isolation of Essential Oils from Eugenol Essay Example for Free

Isolation of Essential Oils from Eugenol Essay Anyone who has walked through a forest or who enjoys the variety of fragrances that flowers have to offer knows that many plants and trees have their own distinctively pleasant odors. These odors are due to the volatile essential oils, many of which have been prized commodities since ancient times. If a list of commercially important essential oils was compiled the list would exceed 200 essential oils. Thyme, garlic, peppermint, and spearmint are but a few examples of the many essential oils used in commercial goods. Essential oils have many applications in the world that can range from flavor enhancement to perfumes. Some oils have also been found to have medicinal properties such as antibacterial and antifungal abilities. Chaulmoogra oil is one of the few know curative agents for leprosy. The oils can also be used in the paint industry, where turpentine is used as a solvent for many paint products. These oils are often found in the intracellular spaces and glands of plant tissue. The oils may be located throughout the entire plant, but are often concentrated in the seeds or flowers of the plant. Many of the essential oils are steam-volatile and can undergo steam distillation to isolate the oils. Another method of oil extraction from these plants is through both solvent extraction and pressing methods. The functional group that is mostly responsible for the characteristic odors and flavors of fruit and flowers is the ester. Although the ester composes most of the scents it is not totally responsible for all scents. Beside the ester functional group an essential oil can also possess complex mixtures of hydrocarbons, alcohols, and carbonyl groups. These compounds usually belong to one of two groups of natural products called terpenes or phenylpropanoids. Investigation of the essential oils in the nineteenth century found that many of the pleasant odors we obtain from nature contained exactly 10 carbon atoms in the compound. These 10-carbon compounds later became known as terpenes if they were hydrocarbons. If the compound contained oxygen in an alcohol, ketone, or aldehyde functional group it was called a terpenoid. It was eventually found that minor and less volatile compounds containing 15, 20, 30, and 40 carbon atoms also exist that give an odor. Since the 10-carbon compounds were at the time called terpenes they changed the name to monoterpenes. The other terpenes were classified in the following way. Class

Pedagogy :: essays research papers

We are currently taking part in a graduate research project at Loyola Marymount University. The focus of this project is internet plagiarism. More specifically what academic and social pressures lead students to plagiarize. Below are several questions regarding your site. Please answer them in the spaces provided and forward the e-mail back to us. We understand that what you do is perfectly legal, and we want to make it clear that we are in no way using this data to accuse or discredit your business. We just want to gain insight as to why students choose to plagiarize (despite your disclaimer not to use the papers they receive as any more than research), what topics they choose, and approximately how frequently they use your site. Also, we want to make it clear that we do not believe that your companies plagiarize or promote plagiarism in any shape or form. Regards, Marc Wiseman, Loyola Marymount Graduate Studies in Pedagogy 1) How long have you been in business? What size staff do you have? Who writes the papers? What is their education level? 2) How many papers are on file? How many topics? How long before a paper becomes outdated? What topics are your most popular? How many do you sell per year? 3) Do you get many complaints about the quality of the papers after they are purchased? If so, how do you solve this problem? 4) How do you protect yourselves from lawsuits? 5) Who is the target audience for your marketing? Where do you advertise? What are some promotional gimmicks that seem to work for you? 6) What is the average age of the people who use your site? How many times, on average, does one person use your site? 7) Do you have many requests for personal narratives? Pedagogy :: essays research papers We are currently taking part in a graduate research project at Loyola Marymount University. The focus of this project is internet plagiarism. More specifically what academic and social pressures lead students to plagiarize. Below are several questions regarding your site. Please answer them in the spaces provided and forward the e-mail back to us. We understand that what you do is perfectly legal, and we want to make it clear that we are in no way using this data to accuse or discredit your business. We just want to gain insight as to why students choose to plagiarize (despite your disclaimer not to use the papers they receive as any more than research), what topics they choose, and approximately how frequently they use your site. Also, we want to make it clear that we do not believe that your companies plagiarize or promote plagiarism in any shape or form. Regards, Marc Wiseman, Loyola Marymount Graduate Studies in Pedagogy 1) How long have you been in business? What size staff do you have? Who writes the papers? What is their education level? 2) How many papers are on file? How many topics? How long before a paper becomes outdated? What topics are your most popular? How many do you sell per year? 3) Do you get many complaints about the quality of the papers after they are purchased? If so, how do you solve this problem? 4) How do you protect yourselves from lawsuits? 5) Who is the target audience for your marketing? Where do you advertise? What are some promotional gimmicks that seem to work for you? 6) What is the average age of the people who use your site? How many times, on average, does one person use your site? 7) Do you have many requests for personal narratives?

Broadcasting of the BBC Documentary ‘The Secret Policeman’ Essay

On Tuesday 21st October 2003, the BBC’s documentary The Secret Policeman was broadcast to approximately 5 million viewers in Britain. Mark Daly, an undercover reporter had spent seven months posing as a fellow trainee at the Bruche National Training Centre in Cheshire to film an exposà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ on racism among police recruits. The film not only provided evidence of police racism but also highlighted the stereotypical representations of Black identity within Western ideology. In this essay I propose to investigate how the British media’s representation of Blacks has, rather than reflecting reality, constructed it. My research predominantly focuses on evidence gathered from racial reports and theories of the 1980’s until the present day and examines the development, if any, within race representation in the media. Pre-1980’s case studies are generally omitted because of the rapid development of discussion of racial issues as a reaction to the brutal riots of that decade. Additionally, the institutional and individual stereotyping revealed within The Secret Policeman can be directly related to prevalent issues specifically within the media of the previous two decades. Controversially, I ultimately aim to depict The Secret Policeman as a symbol of advancement in Black representation within Britain. â€Å"The use of the term ‘Black bastard’ and ‘Nigger’†¦ isn’t racist† The Secret Policeman’s inclusion of a clip of racist remarks by the Police Federation’s Representative in 1983 is an accurate reflection of the racial turmoil that Britain’s Institutions and communities were in. Black lawlessness was an image that dominated the Press reporting on riots from 1980 – 85. A predominantly Black riot against at Bristol’s police force in 1980 was followed by further confrontational outbreaks in 1981. The first two years of riots gained Britain’s (particularly young) West Indian community the reputation for being â€Å"notorious for muggings, assaults and murders†2 but nonetheless presented a slight initial interest into the awareness of the underlying causes. The scale of Britain’s urban unrest between these years varied considerably but the sequence of violence after 1980 forced the political agenda to include an examination of the origins of the protests. The Press employed Brixton (1981) to highligh t the need for enhanced Government economic policies; â€Å"As we condemn the senseless terror†¦ we also condemn the deep seated social problems†¦which spawned them.† From 1983 to 1985 Britain’s poor and predominantly West Indian and Asian neighbourhoods experienced social disturbances, as was the case in 1981. Once more, the media endorsed the riots as the criminal acts of black, inner-city youths but this time they were not linked to ethnic inequality, oppression or socio-economic frustration but only to the Blacks’ position in society and their undermining of the law and cultural traditions of the minority communities themselves. The British press’s reaction to the prominence of riots particularly during 1985 was to decline both generally to examine the reasons for them and specifically to consider ethnical inequality as a cause. Subjects of immigration, housing, employment, social facilities and race relations within the civic authorities that were central to the causes of the urban violence, were abandoned for crude simplifications that represented Blacks as the sole initiators of the violence. The criminal identity with which the media had labelled Blacks was not wholly fictitious. Anecdotal evidence of provocative quotes and repetition of unreliable stories would always ‘operate within a dominant regime of truth’4. Crimes involving Blacks were given disproportionate coverage that suggested a behavioural generalisation that would never be suggested of Whites. Stereotyping was not the only form of racism; more covertly the press would exclude or misconstrue statistics such as those that showed Blacks to be twice as likely to be out of work as their counterparts. The coverage of Tottenham’s 1985 riot gave less publicity to the death of a lack woman than the ensuing disturbances in which a police constable was murdered. The policeman’s role as a victim totally overshadowed the mourning of the aggressor that the Black fatality was consigned to. ‘The perspective within which coloured people are presented as ordinary members of society has become increasingly overshadowed by a news perspective in which they are presented as a problem.’ Teun. A. Van Dijk was highly influenced by Hartmann and Husband’s early study of racism in the press which concluded the above labelling of Blacks. According to Van Dijk the riots were topicalized in a style recognisable across the entire media front; the event, the causes and the consequences. Contrary to using these journalistic traits to investigate all areas of the riots, Britain’s media manipulated it as a means of reporting on selective data. The event was described as the attacks of ‘mobs’ of black youths; in order to maintain the stimulus once the disturbance was over the primary definition of the cause of the riots was in terms of Black criminality in preference to the inner city conditions. Finally, the exoneration of Institutional Britain was enabled through the report’s focus into future containment, policing and inquiries. The report pattern of Black mob, Black crime and Black prevention was typical of a whole generation’s instinc tive approach to Black Britain. The media’s response to the 1980’s riots created and regurgitated images of Black male criminals. Blacks in non-race stories were not considered newsworthy. Encouragingly by the 1980’s Black was on the political agenda; however by 1985 it had been relegated from the social issue some commentators had perceived, via a social problem to a social evil. If the media’s hegemonic reports and editorials in the 1980’s were classed as a barely disguised belief in White supremacy, The Secret Policeman strangely that that attitude to Blacks is as strong today as ever it was then. â€Å"I’m a firm believer that Paki’s create racism.† â€Å"Most Asians carry knives.† â€Å"The thing in London is, the majority of street robbery is Black† In 1982 the Commission for Racial Equality published the first code of practice on eliminating discrimination and promoting equal opportunities, which was speedily identified by a Daily Telegraph editorial as ‘bossy nonsense’. Arguably the code of practice was counter-productive. Attacks on anti-racist and equal rights movements were at their height during the period of 1983 to 1986, when Black became Britain’s pretext for social disturbances. Resistance towards such movements was accused of stirring racial tension through excessive political correctness. For much of the press, racism was a manufactured problem of the anti-racist left, found in social science research programmes, anti-racist projects and multi-cultural education. The anti-racist social learning process created accusations of ‘anti-English’ indoctrination thus posing a threat to White elitism, dominance and control. Thatcher’s Institutionally right-wing Britain defined itself as a protagonist of the attacks from the left that they believed favoured special treatment of multicultural Britain. Significantly, the immediate Government response to The Secret Policeman undercover investigation was given by the home secretary David Blunkett, who criticised the BBC for their â€Å"intent to create, not report, a story†¦as a covert stunt to get attention† According to the Guardian’s most recent statistics, ethnic minorities make up 9% of the UK’s population. In more urban areas such as Greater Manchester where The Secret Policeman was filmed, this percentage is believed to reach figures as high as 30%. However, the documentary showed Warrington police training base to consist of 118 white and one Asian recruit. Notably, Black people in are massively under-represented in Parliament. New Western societies still show many forms of institutional and everyday discrimination that David Blunkett arguably hoped to dismiss with a similar response to the 1980’s critical analysis of racist exposs. Over a month before The Secret Policeman was broadcast, John Gieve, the permanent Secretary at the Home Office wrote to the BBC a letter that they described as ‘unprecedented’ pressure to bully them into withdrawing the programme. The chief constable of Greater Manchester Police also intimidated the BBC with the threat of a ‘Hutton-style’ inquiry that â€Å"could destroy the BBC’s relationship with the police†. Mark Daly’s work within the police force was cut short when arrested on suspicion of deception and damaging police property; charges were dropped when embarrassingly for the police, the public were informed of the institutional racism. The Observer newspaper considered the Whitehall and police resistance worthy of its front-page headline ‘Home Office ‘tried to axe’ BBC police race expos’. Headlines are carefully devised as a pithy synopsis of the story. They quickly impart knowledge in a way which facilitates both understanding and recall. The headlines of news reports about ethnic affairs summarize events that the media’s white academics, teachers, writers and political activists define as relevant to white and black readers’ interests. The media’s manipulation of headlines dramatized the 1980’s anti-racism only to emphasise the Western ideology of Black negativity. For example the Telegraph’s conspicuous headline ‘bossy nonsense’ clearly established the tedium felt by the author towards the issue of tackling racism. The Observer’s recent negative portrayal of institutional antagonists of anti-racism reveals a positive shift from the media’s earlier resentment towards the anti-racist movements. So what is the ideological implication of the shift from 1980’s resentment to the Observer’s stance? How is the exposure of racism in today’s society a sign of improved race-relations? Who is to blame for today’s existing racism? â€Å"Is it the BBC’s fault this has happened?† BBC Radio One questioned both the responsibility of the police and the media in the revelation of The Secret Policeman. Radio One criticised the constable of North Wales for his reference to the hysteria related to terrorism, extremist Muslims and asylum as the rationale for increased racist views. Blaming society, it commented, was no option for police professionals who should â€Å"concentrate on training†¦ and challenge prejudice†15. Is the BBC’s accusation equitable or is pardoning society a means of pardoning the media to ultimately pardon itself? ‘How we are seen determines in part how we are treated; how we treat others is based on how we see them; such seeing comes from representation.’16 Traditionally founded on Reithian ideas of independence, access and expression, the BBC aimed to inform, educate and entertain the masses. The BBC devised itself an identity as the national cultural institution that would represent Britain’s public through Britain’s voice. In a statement following the arrest of Mark Daly, the BBC reflected the all-purpose mission they were founded upon: ‘We believe this to be a matter of significant public interest’17. The BBC, in essence, the media, is a powerful realm of social whiteness that manipulates the patterns of inter-elite communication. The ethnic minorities in Britain even today remain concentrated in relatively few areas. As a result huge numbers of the White majority rely almost exclusively on the media for knowledge of issues concerning their Black counterparts. The formations and continuance of White attitudes are therefore highly reliant upon the media’s portrayal of race-relations; most frequently found in the news. The news is an everyday routine structure, and in literal terms can be defined as a ‘classical realist text’. However, Nichols recognises that ‘the reality of news takes precedence over the news of reality’18, thus enabling it to empower, or dis-empower its subject. In these terms the subject is Black and the empowerment is integral to the serious issue of Black nationhood and identity. When reality is represented, its former unequivocal status becomes ambiguous; news is static but its context is not. For example, patterns of race reporting can attach themselves to the wider subjects of Black British existence, a procedure that Sarita Malik terms leitmotif. During the 1980’s riots, the Black identity was frequently referred to in terms of former race-related violence. Leitmotifs thus manipulated the reality to familiarise the White-eye with often-unrelated parables of Black anger that consequently created a distorted mis-informatio n about the original conflict. In contrast, representing reality can be equally deceitful through a negation of context. The news according to Malik is best at representing ‘what’ and ‘why’ but regularly fails to recognise the socio-political reasoning behind it. In terms of race relations of the last two decades Britain’s media tends to focus excessively on the wider context of Black struggle yet too seldom on the social context that fuels this struggle. The BBC’s decision to resist Governmental and Federal pressures and broadcast The Secret Policeman implied a positive shift in its allegiance to the White ruling classes. Although this documentary was yet another portrayal of the problem-orientated Black, uniquely the ‘revolting’19 and ‘Appalling, racist revelations’20 were more optimistically acknowledged as White. The television documentary is based on questions of identity that engage with the construction of relationships between subject, audience and the camera or narrator. The cinematography is used as a tool of authority in which the spectator is lured into believing they are a observing a record of untouched and immediate reality. But reality, as clarified previously, can be more ambiguous than anticipated. In fact, the illusion that a documentary allows the subject to speak for itself without moralising or judging is, like the news, a powerful status to possess. Documentaries are the most likely genre to directly address socio-political affairs and on the rare occasion of the media’s attention to multicultural development it is most probable they will be used. Unfortunately, documentaries of the 1950’s were emotive, sentimental and practically vague and similarly. The 1960’s gave little hope for a genre increasingly lacking in sensitivity and awareness towards the Black subject. In contrast to the pathos of the 1950’s White pity toward Blacks, the 1960’s employed tones of hostility, fear and conflict. Thus, the erratic history of the socialist documentary was influential and manipulative towards the enhancement of Governmental attacks that ran adjacent to the anti-racist campaigns of the 1980’s. The development of light and cheap video recording equipment has made the ‘video diary’ an accessible and extremely popular style of documentary since the late 1990’s; a development that enabled the BBC to produce The Secret Policeman. Improved camera technology initiated independent film-making and in effect greater social analysis during the 1990’s, but this was not the only continuity in television’s ‘social eye’. Governmental, cultural and economic forces were evolving towar ds today’s individualistic, consumerist and multicultural society; television had to keep pace. The documentary shifted from social generalisations to pluralism and for the first time society was eclipsed by individualism and lifestyle. Although the 1990’s showed much resistance to an increasingly cross-cultural and mixed-race Britain, the definition of society and ‘Britishness’ undoubtedly required re-examination. â€Å"Isn’t it good how memories don’t fade? He [Steven Lawrence] fucking deserved it and his mum and dad are a fucking pair of spongers.† PC Rob Pulling’s acclamation of the murderers and derision of the family of black student Steven Lawrence shocked viewers of The Secret Policeman. Lawrence’s mother was particularly disheartened, stating, â€Å"that, after all this time, people still held those views.†22 The stereotyping of Black people as spongers or scroungers is one that was upheld and confirmed during the rioting period of the 1980’s. The Diasporas posed a threat to Britain as a consequence of its deficiency in resources and increasing immigration numbers. In 1968 Enoch Powell suggested a much favoured but conclusively rejected topic relatable to Thatcher’s new 1980’s, right wing government; that of repatriation. Repatriation essentially warned Blacks to behave or ‘go home’. Powell returned to his theme in the wake of the 1985 Handsworth riots to create a climate of racist opinion. Immigration had become among the most prominent Press subjects, during which, one tabloid claimed that immigrants cost the taxpayer billions of pounds. Black people were constituted as the welfare state’s problem that added to taxation through an exploitation of the ‘White supremacist’ welfare state. In 1984, the News of the World printed the headline ‘à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½476 a week for waiter Abdul’. The Daily Mail picked up on this story, printing a day later; ‘Jobless Abdul†¦life of luxury in hotels†¦at the taxpayers’ expense.’24 The actuality of this story is that the 476 payment that was referred to was an inclusive sum covering the cost of housing Abdul, his wife and his six children. More interestingly, Abdul Bari was a British citizen. In 1999, six years after the Lawrence incident, Sir William Macpherson undertook a high profile investigation into the racism and discrimination in the Metropolitan Police Force.His Report coined the phrase ‘institutional racism’. This triggered discussions of discrimination within Britain’s leading institutions: the police, the media, the education system and the government. Following the Lawrence enquiry huge numbers of police were forced to undertake intensive training in racial equality and similar, revised programmes are ongoing today. One police force in Britain sent 40 000 employees on race training days within the last year, but Pulling’s overt racism raises questions of the efficacy of the Home Office’s current strategy of challenging prejudice. In the concluding chapter of her book Representing Black in Britain, Sarita Malik makes a discouragingly negative, albeit honest assertion that the accepted sentiment that ‘racist Britain’ is in decline is somewhat false. By this, she suggests that racism in the media, as in other public sectors, has merely been concealed. Malik proposed that truthful representations could emerge only through more diverse, aesthetically innovative and accurate portrayals of Blacks. More relevantly to The Secret Policeman, Malik highlighted the need for a rethink of the constituent parts that compose Britain’s media: resources, employment and ultimately its national heritage. Whilst the number of Blacks and ethnic minorities on British television has increased dramatically – particularly in urban based soaps such as Holby City and Eastenders – the production teams and editors continue to favour Whites. My premise that The Secret Policemen established an interesting re lationship with the development of British media was formed whilst listening to a Radio Four news programme. It suggested that The Secret Policeman provided hard evidence that racism had gone underground. The programme concluded that although the police understood the ‘should’s and shouldn’t’s’ of racial procedures, impartiality was never entrenched in their hearts and minds. Consistently with my research, the social learning process of the media has potentially played a huge role in PC Pulling’s racist prejudices and discrimination. Racism is not innate after all; it is learned. So how is it that I feel confident to propose The Secret Policeman as evidence of enhanced race-relations within the media? The role of the media is not isolated, but connected in numerous ways to the elites in general; this time it stood alone. The BBC assumed the role of the anti-racist and confronted the majority. The Secret Policeman exposed to huge public numbers, the long-standing stereotypes of the ‘ruling-race’ and gave scope for investigating the origins of such beliefs. More positively the documentary received instant and drastic responses from both the public and the institutions. The Home Office immediately introduced plans for new police integrity tests and understood the need for societal change. The media’s willingness to scrutinise and criticise the racism revealed in The Secret Policeman marked a complete reversal from the attacks on anti-racism evident in the 1980’s. The Secret Policeman has served a distinctive purpose. It has illustrated what has long been apparent but too rarely admitted; White power is dangerously flawed. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ferguson, Robert. Representing ‘Race’, 1998. Arnold: London Gordon, Paul & Rosenberg, David. The Press and black people in Britain, 1989. Runnymede Trust: Nottingham Malik, Sarita. Representing Black in Britain, 2002. Sage: London Solomos, John. Race and Racism in Contemporary Britain, 1989. Macmillan: London Troyna, Barry. Public awareness and the media, 1981. Commission for Racial Equality: London Van Dijk, Tuen A. Racism and the Press, 1991. Routledge: London and New York

Essay on Love and Duty in Virgil’s Aeneid and Augustine’s...

In his Confessions, Augustine relates that, in his school years, he was required to read Virgil’s Aeneid. The ill-fated romance of Aeneas and Dido produced such an emotional effect on him. Augustine says that Virgil’s epic caused him to forget his own â€Å"wanderings† (Augustine 1116). He wept over Dido’s death, but remained â€Å"dry-eyed to [his] own pitiful state† (Augustine 1116 – 7). Augustine later rejects literature and theater because he believes that they distract the soul from God. Nonetheless, Augustine shares many of the same experience as the characters in the Aeneid. Augustine discovers that love can be destructive, just as it was for Dido. Both Aeneas and Augustine of them give up love for the sake of duty. Aeneas leaves Dido to†¦show more content†¦She confronts him asking, â€Å"Can our love/Not hold you†¦?† (Virgil 983). She says that if Aeneas leaves her, then she is a â€Å"dying woman† (Virgi l 984). When Aeneas persists in his decision to leave, she insults him and angrily sends him away. She calls him a â€Å"liar and cheat† (Virgil 985). Dido’s heart is broken at Virgil’s forsaking of her. She becomes inflicted by a â€Å"fatal madness† and is â€Å"resolved to die† (Virgil 988). After praying for enmity between her descendants and Aeneas’, she climbs atop a pyre of Aeneas’ belongings and stabs herself. Love becomes an obsessive passion to Dido; her life is empty without it. She does not have the will to live forsaken by her lover. She kills herself for love. The poet exclaims, â€Å"Unconscionable Love,/To what extremes will you not drive our hearts!† (Virgil 986). Augustine considers his greatest sin to be the sin of lust. He is held fast by the chains of love and its physical pleasures. Augustine says that his â€Å"one delight was to love and be loved† (Augustine 1118). As an adolescent he â€Å"could not distinguish the white light of love from the fog of lust† (Augustine 1118). There is a difference between love and lust. Love is pure and noble; lust is a base desire. Augustine went to study at Carthage, â€Å"where a cauldron of illicit loves leapt and boiled about [him]† (Augustine 1121). Interestingly, Carthage is the city where Aeneas had his affair with Dido. Augustine says that he â€Å"in