The Lower Class Is not Allowed to Achieve the American Dream

When you are living in an apartment and your best friend is a rat or a roach the only thing that can possibly influence you is the American dream. However, the American dream varies for everyone. Your social status determines whether or not your American dream is possible. People that struggle to make a living don’t have the chance to live in a three floor house or a fancy vehicle. They would be happy if they had a bike to ride around town. People who live in urban communities struggle everyday to fulfill their American dream. Some people aren’t allowed to choose their American dream because they don’t have enough resources to get to their dream life. Others get their American dream handed to them, and they seem to forget about lower class communities. In the wealthy community poverty isn’t a problem, but in reality its one of the biggest problems around and someone needs to open their eyes and realize that.
Anyone would be happy if they were living the American dream: a Lamborghini, a three floor house, and a two door garage. The foolish thing about it is that not many people know that the American dream comes with consequences. Many people have the opportunity to live in luxuries, but they forget that the “good life” causes one of the biggest conflicts known as global warming. It’s crazy to know that wealthy people have the chance to live in luxuries while people that live in poverty have to live in pain, and suffer while they get the worst of Mother Nature. The American dream has a restricted line that stops the lower class from reaching their dream life.
Every time you mention the American dream you think of the rich. Everyone admires them because they have it all: cars, houses, and a great job. Why can’t people in the lower class think about this? It’s because they have to worry about getting out of their neighborhoods, and into a better apartment or project home. Everywhere they go they would have to travel with their best “friends.” Their best friends are the furry, gray, red eyed, cuddly rats. You could never feel lonely because there is always someone to talk to in lower class communities; it might not be your first choice, but it will always be there to listen to you as long as there’s some type of crumb on the floor. The lower class societies tolerate the worst conditions of living, but that is because they don’t have a choice. No matter how far a low income family travels, they still will have to deal with natural disasters, because lower income communities are known for their struggles with global warming. Furthermore, no matter what happens, people that live in poverty will always receive the devastating part of mankind.
Factories are built in lower class communities and fill the air up with dirty pollution. It seems like the government is careless about what happens to people that can’t even dream about a luxurious life. According to “Detroit Arcadia,” by Rebecca Solnit, Detroit struggles with money. Detroit barely has enough resources to allow anyone to live there without getting sick. Many factories were built there and they each stop Detroit from having a populated city. The only people that will probably stay in Detroit are obviously the people that already live in lower income communities. History seems to repeat itself. Society has allowed minorities and whites to diverge. Solnit states “In the 1980’s and 1990’s, the city was falling apart, spectacularly and violently” (Solnit, p.68). So much violence goes on in lower class societies because many people there know that they could never reach the luxurious life. People fight and kill each other to be on the top of an invisible business. This business is created to help provide “the hood American dream.” The “hood American dream” is to have enough money to provide your family with food and shelter. It is also to have certain products that others don’t have: electronics, sneakers, and clothes. Many people create a drug business because they believe that they can acquire all their necessities, and they believe that they can finally reach their American dream. In reality, they don’t reach it; they just risk getting arrested or killed to be above everyone else. They see people living the American dream, so they do what they can to share that feeling. In some cases, that might mean stealing to get what they want. Society has divided, and the rich will continue to stay rich while the poor will stay poor.
How far are some people willing to go to reach their American dream? I ask myself this question everyday. Not only do the rich play a huge role in climate change, but people that live in lower class communities do too. The rich buy these fancy cars, and get involved with these remarkable jobs because it brings in a lot of money. They are so blinded by the money that they forget about global warming. Every car they have ever driven releases gas, also known as a greenhouse gas, into the air, which impacts climate change. When people in lower class societies do reach their American dream they also get blinded by money. They never had the chance to live in the shoes of a wealthy person, so they spend all of their money on luxuries. However, everything they buy contributes to global warming: cars, houses, and electronics. Moreover, the American dream is like a drug, and it becomes very addictive to people that have never had it. When people from poor neighborhoods reach their American dream they get hooked the first time they taste it because the recipe contains a pile of money. A person that lives in poverty struggles to reach their American dream, and for some of them that American dream turns into an American nightmare. An unprivileged person might reach a stop sign in their life if they are trying to snatch their American dream from someone else. For a lot of people in lower class societies, that is all they know how to do. They grow up believing that sometimes you have to take what you believe is yours, but that is not always true. That results in violence, and usually that violence happens between people of the same race. According to “Dead Cities,” by Mike Davis, history follows a constant pattern. Davis states, “He invites us to reopen that history from that vantage-point of an early visible future when sprawl, garbage, addiction, violence, and simulation will have overwhelmed every vital life-space” (Davis, p.31). Global warming was predicted to happen because there were many signs of it before. Factories that were built contributed to global warming, because all of the gas they released mixed into the air and got trapped in the atmosphere. Sprawl cities were created once these factories came into the world, and people created it to separate social classes. Violence just became an addition to sprawl cities and global warming. Finding the American dream can result in a global impact.
The consequence of following the American dream will be an ecocide of the human species. According to “Ecocide,” by Franz J. Broswimmer, Broswimmer states, “well over 50% of all species on earth will be perished” (Broswimmer, p.2). Does the American dream matter then? It will have to take something like an ecocide for all races to unite, but by that time it will be too late, because everyone will be gone. Society needs to give an equal opportunity to everyone. This way violence in lower class communities will end, and everyone can at least have a chance to reach their American dream.
Society’s divisions are the reasons why the American dream results in global warming. Whites move away to suburban areas where they will have to drive a lot more, which wastes more gas. All of the traveling affects global warming; however, urban communities suffer the most. Everyone sees the American dream as a perfect life; it seems perfect at first, but look at the damage it has done. Climate change is at risk, and if everyone keeps following what they believe is the American dream then I don’t know where this planet will be in a few years. The “poor” will continue to live with their best friends known as the rats and roaches, but not only would they share bedrooms with them, but they also would suffer from toxic poison in a lot of the food that they consume. In the film, “The 11th Hour,” narrated by Leonardo DiCaprio, all the garbage and toxic that gets thrown into rivers and other garbage areas, affect people in lower class societies because most of these dumpsters are around the average poor house. All the toxic gets absorbed, and it can poison anyone who happens to be around it. Lower class communities have to suffer while the rich continue their fancy lives. In one way or another, society needs to combine the poor and the rich. According to “The 11th Hour,” one way to do this is by creating photosynthetic cities. This will not happen anytime soon though because everyone is jammed up in this idea of the American dream. The American dream needs to translate into a solution for global warming. Without a solution to global warming, the human species will be annihilated. Then the American Dream wouldn’t matter anymore. How long is it going to take before someone looks through the lens of a struggling person that deals with global warming everyday? Society doesn’t want to witness a struggling person that lives in poverty achieve the American dream.

Citation:
Davis, Mike. Dead Cities and Other Tales. New York: The New Press, 2003
Broswimmer, J., Franz. Ecocide: A Short History of the mass Extinction of species Pluto Press. 2002
Rebecca, Solnit. Detroit Arcadia: Exploror the post American landscape. 2007
“The 11th Hour”. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio DVD.

Im a survivor

Mother Nature is planning to taking over the world in a few years, and I don’t want to think about what will happen when the takeover happens. After reading chapter one in the book, Peak Oil Survival: Preparation For Life After GridCrash, by Aric Mcbay, I started to think about the ways humans contribute to global warming. According to Mcbay, cheap fossil fuel has impacted the human species tremendously. Because of cheap oil, oil has decrease, but people try to take out that little bit of oil that is left and try to use it for a good purpose. However, people don’t understand that it takes a certain amount of oil to take out the last of it. In other words, every time someone uses oil, they are using twice the amount they were supposed to use in the first place. Furthermore, cheap fuel isn’t the only negative cause of global warming; psychology also plays a huge role in this world.
Psychology is a strategy that many people use to get others to believe in certain ideologies. According to the book, The Skill of Ecological Perception, by Laura Sewall, past experiences affect what many people think will happen in the future. This is a form of psychology that forces people to believe future events will happen. Moreover, psychology makes people believe that this earth will one day be over. However, I am a survivor, and I don’t plan on dying anytime soon.

Citation:

Sewall, Laura. The Skill of Ecological Perception.
Mcbay, Aric. Peak Oil Survival: Preparation For Life After GridCrash. The Lyons Press, 2006.

The Cause and Effect of Global warming

Mother Nature is ready to destroy all of mankind, because of all the harm that humans have caused this earth. In the article, “Ecopsychology and the Deconstruction of Whiteness,” Carl Anthony gets interviewed by Roszak, and they touch on the most important issues of global warming. According to Anthony, this society is built around white supremacy. He travels back in time during the harsh slavery times where blacks were treated like animals. He emphasizes on the fact that blacks, in some ways, are still slaves. Anthony believes that whites dominate every other human race. This idea of white supremacy has forced many blacks to work hard just to get the worst jobs in the working industries. These jobs often deal with factories, and just about every boss that runs these jobs are white men. In some cases, blacks realize that they are working for a white man that likes to dominate other human races. Not only do humans cause global warming by working in factories, and creating carbon dioxide, but they also create tension between each other. Humans have caused global warming, and because there is so much tension, they won’t unite to find a solution to global warming. Whites love to be on top of the world, and they constantly hire minorities to do their dirty work, such as work in factories, to keep their business running. Whites still maintain domination over blacks like they did in the 19^th century when they were slave “masters.” This article just gave us one perspective of global warming, but the excerpt, “The World Without US,” by Alan Weisman, gives us another terrifying view of mankind that no one wants to witness.

As I read the excerpt, “The World Without Us,” by Weisman, I was frightened because Wiseman made me wake up, and realize that this world will soon be destroyed. She wrote about how Manhattan is predicted to be underwater if global warming worsens. She stated, “Within 20 years, the water-soaked steel columns that support the street above the East Side’s 4, 5, and 6 trains corrode and buckle. As Lexington Avenue caves in, it becomes a river” (Weisman, p. 30). This definitely scared me because I live on the 6 train line, and I take it home just about everyday when I come from school. If global warming worsens, I don’t know how I will make it home. I would probably have to find some sort of boat to take it home, but by the time Manhattan goes underwater, the human species will probably be annihilated. It all started because whites wanted domination over all other races, and look at what happened because of that idea of white supremacy. Manhattan, like many other cities, will be ruined, and no one will be able to survive the global warming takeover.

Citations:

Weisman, Alan. The World Without Us. New York, NY: Picador, 2008.

Interview between Carl Anthony and Roszak. “Ecopsychology and the Deconstruction of Whiteness”

Companies Manipulate the Youth

Nowadays everyone seems to be insecure, and they make decisions based on their desires. They get so blinded by what the media exposes that they start doing things that make them forget about who they really are. Many companies use psychology to manipulate people, and make them think that they are missing something if they do not have what it is that they advertise. Companies use commercials such as the 1950’s Colgate commercial, to emphasize that Colgate’s toothpaste attracts girls or boys. Although they just speak about what the toothpaste does, they hide the real subliminal message. Companies target younger kids because they know that it is easier to get kids to consume their products. Children are an easy target, because they aren’t mentally strong enough to think outside the box. If you constantly tell a child that they are missing something then they eventually start to believe it and they strive to get that missing part of them. Psychology is one of the biggest advantages that successful companies utilize the most.

According to “The Story of Stuff,” consumers buy products without realizing that they are adding to global warming. People buy new things because what they had before wasn’t good enough for them. They become insecure and throw away their old products for new ones. Furthermore, every time they throw something out they create dioxide because that piece of garbage gets burned or thrown into mixtures of other garbage. All of that dirty garbage turns into dioxide, which mixes in with the air to create air pollution. Companies persuade you and make you think that you aren’t noticed unless you have what is in style. That product becomes a consumer desire for many insecure people. Companies know that young kids want the new Ipods and the new sneakers, but they fail to tell them that they cause global warming once they throw out their old necessities. Kids don’t understand the concept of global warming, so companies advertise commercials with jingles to attract the attention of kids. Kids don’t know that the little things that they cry for cause a problem that can annihilate the human species in a couple of years.

According to “The All-Consuming Self,” by Allen D. Kanner and Mary E. Gomes, the media makes people believe that technology is the face of this new generation. However, the media usually targets the youth because many kids are easily tricked. Companies come out with new technology all the time, but kids are so blinded by what’s in style that they miss the fact that every new invention affects global warming. Technology makes it easier to consume materialistic needs. Companies use this form of psychology to keep their business growing. Technology has become the new face of the earth, and it uses psychology as its partner, so that the both of them together become unstoppable.

Viewed:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Kanner, D. Allen, and Gomes, E Mary. “The All-Consumng Self”

Rockafeller Center and Global Warming

It’s crazy to know that the beautiful ice skating rink, surrounded by tall buildings that tower over it, will one day crash, or sink underwater due to global warming. This tourist attraction is known as the Rockefeller Center. It’s right in the heart of New York City. Imagine if New York City’s heart was stabbed or taken away; New York City can’t survive without it. Furthermore, the Rockefeller Center is in the middle of New York City, which unites people from all around the world. Ice skating is a main attraction when your surrounded by a beautiful Christmas tree that lightens up everyone’s smile. It’s hard to have a bad day there; however, what would happen if global warming was to abolish New York City?
Global warming has been spoken about for years, but no one has really paid much attention to it. Since no one paid attention to global warming in past events, global warming is expected to become so destructive that New York City will be underwater. This means not only will the Rockefeller Center be underwater, but also 42nd Street, and the rest of “the city that never sleeps.” The 19 commercial buildings that surround Rockefeller Center will probably collapse by the time this happen. Nothing will exist if global warming does the damage that it is predicted to do.
This tourist attraction is also home to many people. People do live in this wealthy area, so Manhattan natives would also be affected. All of them would probably die by the time that global warming does the damage that it is suppose to. No one could picture Rockefeller Center being underwater. One way or another someone needs to put an end to global warming by creating some type of law that stops the usage of a lot of gas and oil; if they don’t the heart of New York City will be destroyed.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/southen/3500364115/

In Class Blog on Immigration Video

Immigration increases population, which leads to a horrifying impact of global warming. According to a mini clip, “The Impact of Immigration Policy on the Environment,” Leon Kolankiewicz mentions an equation that refers to population: I = PAT. In other words, population times affluence times technology equals Impact. More and more people immigrate to North America, which increases global warming because more and more oil and gas will need to be provided for them. In an article, “In Shift, 40% Immigrants Move Directly to Suburbs,” about four in ten immigrants move to North America’s suburbs; this allows immigrants to drive and use more gas because suburbs are so distant from everything else. These immigrants come to North America to cause global warming by using all the gas and oil that is left. Immigration has been an ongoing conflict that needs to be restricted by putting security around the borders to stop illegal immigrants that enter North America.

Viewer: "Sprawl City"
(http://www.sprawlcity.org/)

Response to Suburbia

The United States of America is a country known for providing the American dream, but many people do not know that the American dream comes with many conflicts that add on to the destruction of global warming. According to a mini clip provided by Sprawl City, “The Impact of Immigration Policy on the Environment,” many people immigrate to the United States of America to live better lives. Leon Kolankiewicz, an environmental planner from the mini clip, “The Impact of Immigration Policy on the Environment,” visited Honduras and witnessed a great level of poverty. Many of them immigrate to the USA to follow the American dream, but they do not know that their causing an increase of pollution. Of course immigrants are going to take any job they can get to keep their family breathing, but the jobs that most of them take are factory jobs. Not only is it Americans who cause global warming by hiring them, but it is also immigrants that cause it by working there everyday. It isn’t their fault because they are just trying to make a living. There is nothing wrong with trying to make a living except for an addition to global warming. Kolankiewicz states that the population increases by two and a half million every year. Most of the population comes from countries all around the world that believe that the American dream is here for them.
Furthermore, whites and blacks that live in America are a huge accumulation to global warming as well. Everyday there is another argument about racism. However, people need to understand that racism is an existing problem that will never end. Slavery still exists, but it is just in a form that blinds many people. According to a video provided by YouTube, “Gangs and White Flight,” the 1950’s was a time of gang violence. Compton was a very segregated place that allowed many people to start gangs. White people formed a click called the spook hunters, who believed in white supremacy. They kept alive a slavery tradition that they followed for generations, which gave whites the opportunity to beat blacks. This on going gang violence still exists until this day, but now this white and black division has added on to global warming. Whites did not want to live in the same communities as blacks, so whites moved out to areas that later became known as the suburbs. This means that new roads have to be created, which make whites drive more when they want to get to their destination. All the gas that is used causes carbon dioxide, which also causes global warming. This on going racism conflict has cut short the American dream for many Americans because many people have to worry about where they are going before they can get there. I don’t know how any one can reach their American dream without coming face to face with a racism hardship.
The community separation between whites and blacks has left behind a trail of global warming that no one can reach. Where I’m from the minority makes up the majority of the urban community; however, if you go to the suburbs you see the exact opposite. Whites make up the majority of the suburbs. The majority of those white people work in many places around urban communities, which reject many opportunities for the minority. The minorities now have to struggle to find a decent job. Whites rather drive hours from the suburbs to urban communities to work. According to the You Tube video, “Radiant City: Commuting,” an average North American spends about 55 eight hour workdays driving. Due to racism, global warming increases on a daily basis because whites do not want anything to do with blacks, and vise-versa. This question is asked everyday: what is the American dream? It’s different for everyone, but one thing I do know is that the American dream does cause an increase in global warming, which has to be abolished.


Viewing: “Sprawl City”
http://www.sprawlcity.org/

You Tube:
“Radiant City: Commuting”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyXNb1uifds&feature=channel
“Gangs and White Flight”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVHMJzoIYQM