Letter From Birmingham Jail Essays - Gangs In The United States

Letter From Birmingham Jail Martin Luther King Jr.'s essay, A Letter From Birmingham Jail has become a classic for good reason. Martin Luther King was an excellent writer and speaker, appealing not only to the logical side of most people, but also to their emotional side. He was an intelligent man, keeping up with all the current events of not only the nation but the world, and was well read in issues of the past. What he said and wrote came from deep inside him and was influenced by his belief in God and Jesus Christ. His essay took his knowledge and his talents of persuasion, and summed up what he was working for and what he believed in. When he stated, "Anyone who lives inside the U.S. can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds..." he was saying that Americans are people made up of many cultures and backgrounds. He was celebrating America's diversity, which makes the United States such a wonderful place to live. He would be ashamed and sorrowful if he saw how citizens of The United States treated each other today. If we had to take a million immigrants in, say, Zulus, next year, or Englishmen, and put them in Virginia, what group would be easier to assimilate? Patrick Buchanan is outspoken on many subjects, immigration is one of them. Buchanan believes that there should be a 200 mile fence built along the U.S. Mexican border, and that Congress should pass a five-year moratorium on legal immigration. He also feels that an Executive Order should be signed which would abolish federally mandated minority programs and affirmative-action plans, plans that were put in place during the Civil Rights Movement which King helped to lead. Buchanan is the same man who stated that women were "simply not endowed by nature with the same measures of single-minded ambition and the will to succeed." Yet, if he becomes President he will re-instate prayer and Bible study classes because he believes that family values and morals are non-existent in American society today. Is this guy for real? What happened to equality? How can someone be religious and still go around declaring that some people are better then others? Supposedly our country was to have gotten rid of all its racists notions during the 60's and the 70's. Apparently not. Buchanan is creating outsiders within the U.S. Measure 9 and Measure 13, measures, had they been passed, would have caused discrimination on a public scale, legal in Oregon. It would have isolated gays and lesbians as freakish groups who live their lives differently then the main stream, and therefore should be punished for their uniqueness. The founders of these measures, Lon Maybon and the Oregon Citizens Alliance, are so determined to pass such a measure that they are thinking of putting a third measure on the ballot next November. The OCA believes that they have the right to declare homosexuals as dirty people because it says so in the Bible. That, because they have intercourse with members of their own sex, homosexuals should not be allowed to adopt children, or to become legally married. That God has damned them for eternity and that they should be treated accordingly. The OCA is creating outsiders within the U.S. The Crips and the Bloods are two widely known gangs in America. They are centered in the Los Angeles area, but they have groups all across the United States in nearly every city. The Crips and the Bloods are only two of hundreds of growing gangs that are surfacing nation wide. The gangs are prominently located in the inner-cities, the poorer areas of large cities. The gangs play on the idea that they are a family. If anyone attacks my brother, then I'm here to fight back for him. Occasionally, they kill an innocent bystander or two. The kids (Kids they are. Gangs have been known to recruit children between the ages of 10 and 13.) that become members commonly have problems at home, abuse or neglect are prevalent. They feel that the only place left to turn is to the streets, and to the brotherhood of the gangs. Gangs are commonly associated with drugs and violence, for good reason. They attack each other for violation of territory and for interference in each others business, causing a vicious circle of revenge. The result of this violence is fear and anger felt by their victims and neighborhoods. It also leads to a separation between the inner-cities and the suburbs, and stereotyping of whites