"Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck"

While I was looking through books on my nook for a social issue book for class i fell upon a book called "Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck: Why We Can't Look Away" by, Eric G. Wilson. Although I unfortunately don't think I can use it as a social issue book it brings a lot of things to my attention I wouldn't have thought of otherwise. The book brings light to morbid or pessimistic ways to view things that happen in this world. For instance, in chapter three it talks about death. Death used to be a relationship between people and reality. People would die in their houses in piece and the families would grieve in the house. Now a days, people go to the hospital. The author talks about how hospitals are a way of hope when people are desperate. "...The good doctor at any cost will keep you alive" (20) as he puts it. He also talks about how death is now, ".. a failure, a 'business lost.' this is... the attitude of the doctor, who claims control of death as his mission in life... When death arrives, it is regarded as an accident, a sign of helplessness and clumsiness that must be put out of mind." (20) So he is saying that in general death has changed. Now a days we see death differently than in the centuries before us. The author also goes into why we look at bad things even know we know they are bad. Why we force our selvves to look at the bad things such as, the Twin Towers crashing down, or a car crash on the high way. The book brings a whole new light to the world around us and ourselves that we never even thought about. It is a well written book that is a very interesting perspective on life. eveyone should read a least a little of this book and they will better understand why the world is changing so much around us and why "why we cant look away".

Wrongful Convictions

Today in class we had a speaker come in. The man’s name was, Terrill Swift, picture shown above. He is a man that was wrongfully convicted of a rape and murder when he was 17 years old. All the DNA testing said that he and four others were not a part of it. However, they had signed confessions given to them by the police. According to Swift the police didn’t arrest him until he got to the police station and once he was he was interrogated for hours. They showed him pictures of people and asked if he knew that and he denied knowing them. He was threatened with 100 years in jail and took in a lot of verbal abuse. Finally after hours the police told him they believed him and if he signed a piece of paper he could go home. However, he soon learned that what he had signed was a confession. When he was taken to court the courts decided that the confession over ruled the DNA and that he was guilty. He spent 15 years in jail until the Northwestern Center of Wrongful Convictions became interested in his case. After he was put on parole and forced to register as a sex offender he fought against it with the people from Northwestern and after eight long months was found innocent. However, he was sent to jail a few times before that because of parole. One day he went to Popeye’s after work to get something to eat and was thrown in jail for eight days because he violated parole. It still wasn’t easy for him. He wasn’t even allowed to see his family members unless they were over the age of 17. The whole issue just took over his life and drastically changed it. It wasn’t easy and he never did anything wrong. The person who was really responsible for the crime was a serial killer and rapist.
To think that there were four men that were sent to jail for 15 years for this rape and murder on a false confession while the real rapist and murderer was running around killing and raping more people disgusts me. There are a very large number of people that are wrong convicted. A lot of the prisoners who are innocent are never found innocent. There is something wrong with our justice system if this can keep happening. There is something that needs to be done. If people are going to be sent to jail and punished for something they did then people need to make sure it is the right person. If not then a innocent person is being punished for something they didn’t do. Their lives get ruined while the people really responsible get to run free and keep doing what they do. When Swift was talking he said that the police that got the false confessions from all of them also did it to about 12 other people. There is something seriously wrong with that and they need to be punished as well. They ruined multiple people’s lives, including the victims of the murderers they actually let go free so their lives would be easier. Not only did they ruin the victim’s lives, the wrongfully convicted’s lives, but they also ruin all their family’s lives. This kind of thing is not easy on any family that has to go through it and they shouldn’t go through it if the person was innocent or if the person was caught so they didn’t have a chance to hurt the next victim. Something needs to change and fast. There are way too many people being wrongfully convicted and way too many people getting away with serious crimes they shouldn’t get away with. There are also way too many lives being ruined and someone needs to do something about it.

Affirmative Action

I think that affirmative action is okay when someone isn’t purposefully trying to use it. For instance in Florida, Texas and California there were public universities, “Whose “race-neutral” admissions policies were applauded by President Bush… for their efforts to achieve the goals of affirmative action.. Without actually using affirmative action.” (Time Staff Writers) In these policies they say that the schools will accept, “the top students in every high school, including those that are predominantly or entirely minority.” (Times Staff Writers) This is how it should be. If a student works hard and makes the grades to get into a good school then they should be accepted no matter what their skin color is. However, some people can see that as affirmative action but in reality it is being fair. What I don’t like is when people try to fight for affirmative action. When people fight for affirmative action they are basically asking someone to favor them. In their argument the people fighting for it will say they want to be treated equally. However, affirmative action isn’t being treated equally. That is creating a way in because of your race, sex, or ethnicity. It is asking to be accepted over someone else because of your race, ethnicity, or sex which in turn makes decision making unequal.
However, there needs to be a middle ground. There should be diversity within a college or private school. After all, “Students educated in a diverse university are better prepared for a diverse work force and for helping bring about… “One nation, indivisible.”” (One Nation, Indivisible) I think for schools that are post high school or private schools they shouldn’t even ask for race. This way they aren’t making their decisions based on race. All they are basing the person on is who they are in school and out. They will be judged on their hard work and dedication, or lack of, in and out of school rather than getting a different treatment because of the color of their skin, their ethnicity, or their sex. They won’t be accepted or declined because of their color, ethnicity, or sex. It shouldn’t matter what they are or where their family comes from. I understand that people think if there is a mixture of different races, ethnicity, or sex in a classroom there might be better discussions and that there will be a wider range of ideas. However, I’m not so sure that is true. If there are two people from the same area raised the same way they are going to have similar views on things. Just because they are black or white doesn’t change that they were raised around the same people with the same view points in the same area. If anything they should try to have people coming in from all different areas to their school in order to have better discussions rather than trying to get people of different color. However, there are schools that allow people with the top 10th percent of the high school will be accepted right away. I don’t agree with this either. Although the school could be doing all they can the student might not be prepared for the school that is accepting them and won’t succeed in the school. “While Top 10 plans successfully increase minority enrollment, some high school don’t prepare students well to meet the requirements of the more demanding majors in the university.” (One Nation, Indivisible) Therefore they should look at the schools they are coming from and their curriculum to make sure the students would succeed in the school. The reason people don’t get accepted to college is because they won’t be able to succeed and the college wants everyone to have an equal chance in succeeding. However, if they didn’t have to knowledge to succeed the college shouldn’t accept them and set them up for failure. I don’t believe affirmative action is always fair and when people are asking for it so they will be treated equally they are actually asking to be given a privilege over other people and be treated as and looked at more highly because of their race, ethnicity, or sex and I don’t think that is right either.

Hidden Biases Test

In my Issues class I just took a race IAT test. It said that I slightly preferred Eastern European people over African Americans. Above is the averages of everyone who takes the test. I was very surprised by my results and I don’t think that it is very accurate. I personally have never felt a bias when I’m with the two different races and have always treated everyone the same. I have always felt that I was neutral and I still do. I really don’t think this test is very accurate. Some issues with it are, I forgot which key to press for correct or not and at first I didn’t understand what to do it took me two rounds to figure everything out and I still messed up which keys are which. I also think the order in which they show the pictures and words effects which one you press and sometimes accidentally hit the wrong one. I also felt like I should go quickly and felt rushed and didn’t really think things through. I wonder how the results work. I don’t understand how from clicking on random keys and matching words and pictures to what the words say at the top really accurately show what you are thinking. I personally don’t think you subconsciously hit the keys. You think about it and I kept messing up which keys were which.
After reading the FAQs I still don’t think this test is accurate. There is no way it can be. Although it can probably detect the extreme sides I really don’t think this test can in any way be accurate. I definitely think there are stereotypes and one of the FAQs does answer that. Someone had asked “why are there pictures of faces instead of names?” which creates a stereotype that shouldn’t be created about the different races. As bad and annoying and wrong as it is there are stereo types. There are definitely biases and some people are biased and don’t know it like saying a certain name goes with a certain race. But, I don’t think that putting random good words and bad words mixed with pictures of people from a different race and pressing a button to put them into categories is an accurate way to measure those biases.