blogger 3

Christian Quintero

English A, 8am-10am

Ms. Amanda Reyes

17 October 2015

Connections Essay

The topic I decided to choose for my Multi-Genre Portfolio project was racism. Racism is still very alive in the United States and around the world. People suffer every day from being harassed, bullied, mistreated, and violated based on the belief that one race is superior to another. There are thousands of cases of men and women who are mistreated because their race or what they look like. I had read an article of these three male athletes who were arrested for disorderly conduct when they were simply waiting for a ride from their coach and nothing more. They were told they looked “suspicious” and “Out of place” but the reality of the situation was that they were judged and stereotyped to three black males that were up to no good. This story caught my attention because it is similar to what has happened to some of my teammates that I have grown up with. The two stories were very interesting because they contained the same situation, different state, different city, but the same race. Racism is threatening the lives of innocent people.

“Structural violence is one way of describing social arrangements that put individuals and populations in harm’s way” (Dr. Paul Farmer). Structural violence is an example that ties into race in the way that people are put in unfair situations that can involve police, society, employers, and even our hospitals. It isn’t fair that some are not given opportunities to succeed based on their appearance. It is also unfair that opportunities are taken away. For example, a negative perspective toward a group of people can threaten an entire race’s community. How is one supposed to succeed when their opportunity is being limited as soon as they step out their front door? Another article that was written had stated that structural violence may lead to death. That twenty years of study show that any person of color is less likely to receive treatment before anybody else (Paul Kivel). That race definitely plays a major role in our daily lives.

To help prove my points and help bring light to these issues I have included a police report, an interview, and a proposal in my portfolio. The police report was made from a template and a simply input the information that I took from some very common race involved cases. My interview was a real conversation I had with a friend of mine on Friday October 16th, 2015. I thought it was a perfect example and I just put our conversation in the format of an interview. Lastly, I used my proposal essay as one of my genres to show what can be done to help instead of another case or video regarding the same material of people being mistreated because of their color. I feel like my portfolio does a good job on showing the relationship between racism and structural violence in the way that I gave examples of articles I personally read and I gave real stories to show the points I was making. It definitely makes connections through the given examples throughout the portfolio.