Why slavery isn't the cause for rascism

Have you ever take the sin of slavery upon yourself and felt obligated to pay black people back for the pain that they suffered.  Although thats all fine and dandy I want to talk about why i feel that this shouldnt be taken ones self and why it can't be taken upon yourself. the first thing that I wanted to cover is that slavery is no longer a factor that effects black people today. Although many people may argue that slavery is the cause for rascism, I feel that it is the exact opposite rather it is rascism that affects slavery. To prove this let us take a step back in history and look at slavery and rascism, you will find that slavery has come and gone but rascism has always been there. For example If we look at something recently, the rascism tensions between Pakistan and India are a great example. However there is no recent record of slavery between two races, which proves my point that rascism has been here for a longer time than slavery. So I feel that people should not take upon themselves to pay back black people for the sin slavery that they haven't even committed because there is nothing that we can do that will fix that problem. Rather the problem that remains is rascism and the only way to fix that problem is to treat everyone equally on a personal level not on a national level. The only possible way to fix this problem is to treat everyone equally and justly, on an individual level so that acts such as slavery are not repeated.

Unit 1 Overview and Rebuilding era

This unit we learned a lot of things ranging from the revolution and the war against the British to slavery and the Civil war. We learned about reasoning and how to analyze texts to use them and learn about history from OPVL. To help us understand the importance of history we also discussed a range of topics such as general pickets charge or more earlier we discussed like Jared diamonds theory of movement. We were tested on our knowledge of logic and history in our unit test. It tested our skills of using OPVL to analyze a document and the skill of comparing and contrasting 2 very different or alike documents. It also tested our writing skills for an essay. I think i did fine on the test because the test wasn't testing our knowledge as it was testing our skill of analyzing different documents. After the test we started to learn about what happened after the civil war and we moved in learning about the roaring 20's and which after the great depression moving into World War 1. All in all i think that this unit was great and we will learn more next unit about earlier times.

Foreign culture day and the Civil war

In American lit this week we debated whether or not we should have a foreign culture day or not. There were many great  arguments on the both sides. One thing that was brought forth by the group against the idea of foreign culture day was that it encourages unnecessary racism. I realized that due to the actions of one person a whole society has to suffer. To connect this to the civil war because of the actions of a select few states that decided that it is okay to own another person, it caused all of America to go in war for 4 years. This affected people as they had to enlist into the army as early adults and a lot of them died. Another more specific example in the civil war was the battle of Gettysburg where General Jeb Stuart made a mistake by raiding small towns rather than scouting the union army and reporting back to General Lee. His mistake caused problems and complications for General Lee's army, which some historians believe ultimately caused the Confederates to lose the war. What we can take from this is that one person that can be used as an excuse to blame a whole society. So this is more of a character check for whoever reads this. Remember that you represent yourself and a culture or group so if you do something wrong it could be used against not just you but the people you represent. 

The Missouri compromise and its effect on slavery

The Missouri compromise really changed north and the south and where slavery was allowed. When you look at America at the time every where above the mason Dixon line was free and everywhere below was a slave state. The people of Missouri were intrigued by the idea of slavery and wanted to become a slave state but since it was above the mason Dixon line it was not allowed. After a bitter battle in congress Missouri was allowed to become a slave state on the condition that Maine previously part of the state of Missouri become a free state. Also except for Missouri other states above the were not allowed to become slave states. This act told the people of the south because it established the principle that Congress could make laws regarding slavery. On the other hand northerners didn't like it because it encouraged slave states above the mason dixon line. 

Idea of Justice

Justice is a very tight subject in the United states, due to recent events the justice system in america has been questioned, In recent news Ferguson has been questioned about its justice system, Also if we take a step back to 13 years ago the world trade center was shot down by terrorist once again questioning our  system of justice. Let us also not forget what happens when the justice system is threatened, the idea of justice completely changes. For example if an american kills someone he is diagnosed as mentally ill while on the other hand when a foreigner kills someone it is an act of terrorism. So in this way the idea of justice is changed, this is not just a new problem if we look back to the time of slavery we can see that, even then the idea of justice was different. We can observe this from Lincolns debate with Fredrick Douglas, when Lincoln addresses the fact that the sin of slavery has been committed yet there is nothing that he can do about it " My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia...If they were all landed there in a day, they would all perish in the next ten days; and there are not surplus shipping and surplus money enough in the world to carry them there in many times ten days.". Here he outlines that the system of justice cannot be acted upon if there is no idea of justice.

Natural liberty is the idea that men are given a liberty by god when they are born, namely life and the pursuit of happiness. This natural liberty is also mentioned in the declaration of independence where it says  "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." (Declaration of independence). This idea is further explained in John Winthrop speech on liberty. He explains that this is the liberty that a man shares with a beast. This means that we are both given the liberty of life and the pursuit of happiness, One can also go further and say that what separates a man and a beast is civil or moral liberty, which is the moral values that society wants one to uphold. this is also explained by John Winthrop as the covenant between man and his lord. If a person only shows natural liberty with out civil liberty he is branded as a "savage" in society. My personal opinion is that someone without civil liberty is not a savage but a man without the knowledge of equal rights therefore it is not his fault to be branded as a savage. Rather it is societies fault that he isn't educated about his civil rights therefore not allowing him to have that trait.