Civil Wrongs Act of 1964

In the first unit of my last Humanities course of Junior year, we were asked to pick an act or policy to address, or even create our own. I chose the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because I don't believe it's living up to its expectations. The policy states that it "outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." My concerns are that this policy isn't very well carried out and enforced. Our main mission as a class was to address each of our policies by sending a letter to a person of power that could properly address our issue. I found no other option better than writing to the president himself. I feel like this project went pretty smooth, especially since I am very passionate about the topic I chose and trying to rat out the corrupt power figures in our government. I am definitely proud of my letter as a whole and the fire I used to compose it. That's not literal fire, don't you know the fire you get from wanting to speak your mind? I did learn that with writing a letter to the president, comes a lot of proofreading, and I'm sure my letter is not perfect.

Amazon. "Civil Rights Act of 1964," Web. 04/29/16

DR
GCE Lab School
1535 N. Dayton
Chicago, IL 60642

April 24, 2016

The One and Only Barack Obama
1600 Pennsylvania Ave
White House, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500


Dear President Obama:

"Civil Rights Act of 1964- Outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin."
I could come at the Civil Rights Act a couple of different ways. One being the extreme lack of employment benefits for women. Another being the corruptness in the Police Department, specifically targeting the racism in the executive branch. Another way I could attack the Civil Rights Act, is by simply pointing out that there is still discrimination in the US. There's discrimination small-scale and large-scale, so what's the point of this big act? Don't ask me.

I could break this down deductively, by stating the facts:

• African-Americans comprise only 13% of the U.S. population and 14% of the monthly drug users, but are 37% of the people arrested for drug-related offenses in America. - dosomething.org. N.D.
• After being arrested, African-Americans are 33% more likely than whites to be detained while facing a felony trial in New York. - dosomething.org. N.D.
• Equality in pay has improved in the US since 1979 when women earned about 62 percent as much as men. In 2010, American women on average earned 81 percent of what their male counterparts earned, - International Labour Organization. N.D.

These statistics are not only true, but extremely sad. How can we be proud to call ourselves Americans? We have done society so wrong for so long that we have trained our minds to think that an increase of woman:man pay from 62% to 81% is actually okay. That 19% is obviously significant, but we glorify gender inequality by looking over the fact that there is still 19% to go. As of 2014, according to the AAUW Organization, there has been a decrease to 79% in the woman:man ratio, meaning there's now 21% remaining. By no means, is this acceptable.

Some may say that there's a reason for women not being payed as much, but there's no legit reason. Is it that women don't work as hard as men? Of course not, that can't be why because that's not at all true. Some people believe that women shouldn't be working and should stay at home and tend to household things, but why? That's equivalent to saying men should stay at home and do "household things," then who would work? Complete non-sense!

There has been recent uproars regarding young men who suffer from racial profiling, racial discrimination, and police brutality. Me and these young men have the same complexity and the only thing that separates them from me, is the fact that I didn't run into the wrong police officer at the wrong time. As I commute back and forth from the south side to the north side of Chicago to get to and from school, I fear for my life as I am just like those of our lost ones in these officers' eyes. Does this not frighten you as president, as much as me being a potential victim? Chew on that.

Me and my mother live in Chicago IL, born and raised in the US, our home country. How can we call this place our home when my mom works a nine hour shift and is only getting payed a 79,000$ yearly salary, whereas her male counterpart works the same exact shift and "earns" a 100,000$ yearly salary? My mother is then put in a position where she has to tell my little female cousins that they have to be men to earn fair pay. If this doesn't ring a bell in your mind, then I don't know what will!

I propose a reinstatement and stronger legislation of our former Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Thanks for viewing this letter and I would like to close by just saying that these problems are picking the US apart. You, as the president, have some type of power to make a difference. If you understand that you are being a witness and bystander to the horrible things that are happening to YOUR people that voted for YOU, to get YOU to where you are now, then you would understand that before you leave office, you need to address some of these problems with more passion. Remember, I meet the profile of being black and I could be next at any time. The next cop rolling down my block, deciding that he wants to use excessive force, you're gonna wish you made a difference. It's never to late too try your hardest.

Break, Or Not To Break

In the first unit of my last STEAM course of junior year, we were asked to create a bridge with a random partner. KIS and I had to create a bridge using triangles because we have studied that triangles have proved to be the most effective shape in infrastructure. We used a combination of glue and popsicle sticks to create a stable bridge. There was a small amount of super glue available so we used it with caution. After overcoming some problems with our initial design, our outcome was different than expected. The main concern before testing the 10lbs on our bridge was the constant leaning of it. Not to mention we could only use 50 popsicle sticks. Despite our difficulties with the design, I am extremely proud of my bridge for holding 10lbs.

Where Amazing Happens (Hyde Park - Chicago)

The name of this course is "If These Walls Could Talk," and surrounds its curriculum around historic artistic views and defining "mural." For the first Action Project of my Humanities course this Elective Term, we had to create a drawn piece of art work that signifies what our chosen neighborhood needs. For example: if someone's chosen neighborhood has a violence problem, maybe they can draw a no shooting picture. We also have to tie this back in to what we have been learning by utilizing historic styles of art. We have to also utilize our mind and think of symbolic ways to get our point across, which is my favorite part of the project. I chose to pick the Hyde Park neighborhood because I currently live there and it's one of my favorite places to be. Researching the neighborhood was pretty easy because it's widely known as a pretty important place in Chicago. This made my project flow pretty smoothly because I could easily research what I had to.

DR. "Where Amazing Happens," Nov 30, 2015

DNR
11/2015
Where Amazing Happens
Pencil on paper 11” x 14”

In my art piece, you can clearly see the the statement in the middle of the drawing. It says "Where Amazing Happens," and if you look closely you can see "Hyde Park" faded in the background. The intended message that I hope to get across is that greatness has came out of the Hyde Park neighborhood, so this is inspiration for people my age and younger to be something great, no matter what neighborhood you're from. From my research, I realized a lack of education in Hyde Park, as the main school there, Kenwood Academy High School, has a 50% reading proficiency rate and 40% mathematics proficiency rate. These are fairly average numbers for a CPS High School, but I believe my neighborhood can do better! This serves a problem to me, because the worse this situation gets, the more kids on the streets, which means more killings and all types of other bad stuff. 

If you look closely, you can see my horizon line, drawn through the middle of the drawing, this is where the eyes of my viewer are first drawn to. There are also buildings throughout the drawing with a long path that has a vanishing point. I tried to create this art as a tribute to Hyde Park and simply, all the greatness that comes out of my neighorhood, with shoutouts to Mary Lincoln, Barack Obama, Muhammad Ali, Erne Duncan, and Vic Mensa. These are all people that are and have done great things. 

I colored my drawing accordingly to the color of each symbol. So, the Save Money symbol is red, so I colored it red, and Ali's gloves were usually red or gold, so I colored them red as well.