Chapter three Human Trafficking: Issues in Social Justice

Author: Jacob Armstrong

Human trafficking is control over humans: humans buy other humans to work for them. Trafficking became a major issue and social problem in the United States. Trafficking is increasing because it is a good business “the business of selling humans” traffickers make the United States approximately about 32 billion dollars every year. How trafficking works is when traffickers walk to find victims of the street such as homeless, poor, jobless or non-citizen people with no protection or back ground, and who are desperate for money, food and jobs or even for a better life style. This is like a contract or a promise, those traffickers job is based on deception, they work by convincing those people or make them believe that their life will eventually get better but only if they work as hard as they could and do everything they are asked to do and under all circumstances’ they still have to obey and work, even if the job was unsafe, dangerous and pose significant hazard, sometimes diseases and for most times get physically and verbally abused. Although there is no health care or protection for those kind of jobs.

There are five reasons why trafficking is increasing: one is the transformation of individuals; whenever traffickers are done with an individual they transfer him or her to a different country and make money out of them. Second for military needs, traffickers make children work in the military with no training. Third is when parents produce children to sell them for money to survive. Forth is traffickers make billions out of sex when they make women sleep with multiple men each day, and fifth is when traffickers make those humans work in labors that no other human would want to work in because its hazard and unsafe.

Traffickers call those humans reusable or recyclable because they use them over and over again until they are no longer usable for becoming physically and emotionally injured and specially for children under 18 they become not fully developed neither physically or mentally and most likely with diseases.

Some organizations in the United States have worked to end trafficking like the NGO and had been successful but did not get enough support or money from the government, so this organization and all the other ones are very limited. Also the fact that some countries still accept transformation this will make trafficking exist.

Chapter two Discrimination faced by members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community: Issues in Social Justice

Author: Jacob Armstrong

In the Issues In Social Justice book, Chapter two talks about discrimination faced by members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. In June 28, 1969 the genesis of the gay rights movement began then became an issue because same sex marriage became a threat to the traditional marriage as well as to the hall community. In society there is rules based on our gender for example women are expected to be more emotional than men, but for some people they find it very difficult to follow their gender rules for example a girl maybe interested on be women instead of men, that she does not see men attractive. So sexuality is a big issue and what makes sexuality even more complicated is when something falls in between heterosexuality and homosexuality which is bisexuality, this is related to an individual who is interested in both men and women.

 The process of coming out of the individuals heterosexual identity change for becoming lesbian and bisexual begins in their mid to late teen years and sometimes to mid-twenties, and sometimes  social interaction would be the main influence of the individuals sex change.

The process of coming out is very difficult and sometimes shameful for some people when they think about the consequences of becoming homosexual, about the society and its acceptance to gays and lesbians, about their friends, family  and most important their “rights” on how much support they will get from the government and  legislation, knowing that the state tried to silence and limit their population right after they made the decision on legalizing same sex marriages, also knowing that the federal government did not want to be involved in this for its conflict with the bible.

So homosexuals are not well protected by the states or legislation for example: that even if an assault was committed to a gay or lesbian either emotionally or physically sometimes they believe that the assault would not have been committed to this specific individual if they were to be straight.

Jobs and housing have also became an issue for homosexuals, many gays and lesbians have actually been fired from their jobs or not even been hired in jobs or got hired but paid less and that’s  be and that’s cause of their status, it was also difficult for them to find living as well for the same reason. So homosexuals suffered from discrimination within employment and housing because there is no legal protection against employment and housing discrimination, so some of them started to hide their status in order for them to get a job and a house.  Homosexuals did become a threat to the United States that based on their behaviour there became an economic effect.

There is a policy or protection that could be made against discrimination but it may not work anyways for employments and housing, but in society the acceptance of homosexuals into an everyday life now is becoming wider.

Bell Hooks

Bell Hooks is an American author, she was born in September 25,1952. She studied sociology and her main focus was on race, gender and class. She became a distinguished professor of English at city college of New York and started with feminist theory then became the author of 14 books of commentary and autobiography. hooks had writen many quates, some of her quates were

In her video cultural criticism and transformation she talked about the book she wrote about how important it is and why we should study popular culture. and that much she had always focused on thinking and writing critically in general and about the practice of education in peticular. She aslo advised people to think critically as well. one of the most important things she talked about is how media takes place in which it makes the picture of black people look bad in American society.

“If any female feels she need anything beyond herself to legitimate and validate her existence, she is already giving away her power to be self-defining, her agency.” and

“No black woman writer in this culture can write "too much". Indeed, no woman writer can write "too much"...No woman has ever written enough.”

Sociological Imagination

“Public Issue”

The economic issue in the United States and the educational system problem,

The U.S. educational system is compulsory for the first 9 to 12 years of education, depending on the state. While most students graduate between 17 and 18 years of age, many states allow for the student to voluntarily remove themselves from enrollment, or "drop out" without earning a diploma^.

Although some funding comes from the federal government, public education is almost entirely funded and controlled individually by state and local governments and school districts. Within a state, primary control of the system rests with the state, which delegates authority to local authorities. Although the Department of Education wields some authority, most powers concerning schooling remain with the states.

The funding and condition of the school system in each municipality is largely determined by the school district or local government. In affluent communities, especially those with many school-age children, the educational system tends to be more heavily funded on a per-student basis and tends to be more effective. Communities that are less affluent or have a lower proportion of families with children generally spend less money per child. Statistical information generated by the no child left behind act, and similar acts at a state level, demonstrate the general correlation between money spent per child and academic success.

State governments since the 1970s have grappled with these issues of educational equity. Despite these attempts, in 1992, the U.S. General Accounting Office stated, "Although most states pursued strategies to supplement the local funding of poor school districts, wealthier districts in 37 states had more total (state and local combined) funding than poor districts in the 1991-92 school year. This disparity existed even after adjusting for differences in geographic and student need-related education costs." In some states, most prominently New Jersey, courts have ordered dramatically increased funding in lower income areas. In other states, legislatures have acted on their own initiative to somewhat equalize the funding available.

Chapter 1 Religion And Homosexuality: Issues in Social Justice

Author: Jacob Armstrong

Chapter one in the issues in the social justice book talks about Religions and Homosexuality. Organized Religions have the concept of power on making rules to maintain order within society in the countries, but the states is more powerful because it could force obedience and enforce the law. In the United States Christianity became the most powerful religion that 75 percent of Americans follows the Christian religion, Few years ago a public issue has surfaced, It was the “Homosexuality”. Although it clearly says in the bible that homosexual is unacceptable and sinful to god, but the united states have challenged this social issue, so the state made its own decision about it so they legalized the homosexual marriages to be fair and understanding to peoples cultures and interests of practicing their own things and avoid racism. In this way both ex-gay and gay people can practice the Christianity still but in their own believes of who they are as humans. Overall a social change can happen while enforcing the law and religion.

Global sociological imagination

Global sociological imagination

My parents are both originally from Palestine but they have lived most of their lives in Saudi Arabia. They got married there and started to have a family. My dad worked really hard to support us “his family” as well as he went to postsecondary school to get his bachelors in economies. In the meantime and my mom stayed focused on raising us “her kids”. As we were growing Saudi Arabia’s rules started to change. One of the rules they changed is that any non-Saudi resident in their country will not have the right to attend postsecondary school any longer. This rule have got my dad’s attention which made him think deeper about our future and what will happen to us “his kids” when we grow up without education. He took an action and started looking for a place where we can attend school and found out that the best thing to do is to immigrate to Canada. This rule Saudi Arabia had made changed my life today. Now that I am in Canada, and in post-secondary school, I realized that my life has been impacted by other people’s actions.

Canada had given me the chance not only to finish my education but to work as well. When I had my first job I felt very responsible about myself and surprisingly about all the poor kids all over the world who suffer from hunger, I felt really bad for them and now that I can actually do something such as to donate for them, I started doing it frequently. I was proud of myself as well as thankful to Canada who gave me the chance to do so. I hope I changed something in this world and hope my action gave those poor kids the chance to be alive.

Body Ritual Among The Nacirema

Body Ritual Among The Nacirema

Author:Horace Miner

Nacirema is a north  American  group of people who lived between the Canadian Creel the Yaqui and Tarahumare of Mexico. Those nacirema people were and still hardly understand by others, they were very rich by nature but the poor once of them were not treated equally with the rich ones. Nacirema are well focused on eating fruits for the wealthy look or for what they call it the “human body” . They use their wealthy looks as power of ritual and ceremony. The richer the native was the more control he had over others, and the more shrines he would have.

In the shrines natives have built chest or box on the walls which has charms and magical potions and pure water which is the main thing in the hall temple. They believe that without it they could not be alive.

Nacirema believe that there is a supernatural influence in all social relationships and a strong relationship exists between oral and moral characteristics, but their strongest believe was the medicine man who writes down the ingredient of the medicine in a secret language that only he would understand it.

The medicine man has both the power and the magic from the devil to assist sick clients with all their needs and wishes  such as taking the fear away from children and changing woman’s shape  by making a fat woman thin and small breasts big and also avoid women’s pregnancy and many other powers of magic such as the  “holy-mouth-men” which is  power with the mouth, It is some kind of power and magical material put in to the clients mouth making the client believe that this men hold the teeth from breaking down and to draw friends as well, when it actually breaks the teeth down even more.

The actual reason is to make the client come back to the holy-mouth-men once or twice a year because for every treatment the medicine man has to get a valuable gift from the client and if the gift is not valuable enough the sick patient will not get treated even if the patient is poor.