Response Paper – America a Big “melting Pot”Essay Preview: Response Paper – America a Big “melting Pot”Report this essayTsedenya Haile Eng 102 – 1506Dr. Kelly SteeleJuly 9, 2015I always hear that America is a big “melting pot” of different cultures, races, and religions, but I think that it is more of a tossed salad. Although there people from all kinds of backgrounds, they do not leave their differences to come together and become one. People of the same cultures tend to stick together in little clumps as they like to be with people of similar upbringings. Because of theses clumped groups of people, different groups tend to ostracize others due to perpetuated stereotypes. This is evident in “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space,” Brent Staples says, “It is not altogether clear to me how I reached the ripe age of twenty-two without being conscious of the lethality nightmare pedestrians attributed to me” (302). To me, this shows that Staples grew up not letting his color define who he is. He was oblivious of the negative association of being a black person because he thought of himself as just another person. I can relate to this because one day, the people in my class were asking each other what their ranking was trying to figure out who was in the top five, and nobody bothered to ask me – probably because they didn’t think I would be up there, but I was number two. Another reading I can relate to is “Leave Your Name at the Border” by Manuel Muñoz. Muñoz explains how the names people bring with their cultures “stood as barriers to a complete embrace of an American identity, simply because their pronunciations required a slip into…the otherness that assimilation was supposed to erase” (91). I face this same problem outside of my house as nobody can pronounce my name correctly. Most people ask me if I have a nickname, which I don’t, to make it easier for them, but I am proud of my name, and I won’t let anyone call me anything else.
Children have the most brain development in the earliest years of childhood, so I am not surprised to hear they are no “stranger to moral reflection” as stated by Coles in “I Listen to My Parents and I Wonder What They Believe” (360). Although they are told what to believe and what is wrong or right, they will develop their own views as they begin to mature. I grew up following the same beliefs as my parents, but now that I am grown, there are things that I don’t see eye to eye. For instance, the issues with gay people, recently, has had a big turn as they gained marriage rights. My family including myself are Orthodox Christians, so my parents are not supports of gays. I, on the other hand, have a neutral view. In my view, people of the gay community are human just like myself, and I believe that everyone should have the same essential rights. No one should be able to take away someone’s happiness to keep their own.
In conclusion, I cannot support a legal or anti-discrimination law in this country which would discriminate against homosexuals. There are so many different views, and you may agree with me that there is no legal definition of a homosexual, either to the federal government or to any state, that means discrimination should be prohibited. A religious group, or person, has the right to do anything they see fit, but should still be allowed to object. In my opinion, there were good and bad sides to everything, whether this is legal or not. In fact, in some instances it could well be argued on both sides that this is a good and bad side on either side. But if that isn’t enough, it also shouldn’t be the issue for legal or not. It is quite different from an argument in favor of being a religious person living in your family, who is being “judged” based on that view rather than by what is the “right” view. It won’t be taken as being “not “rights”:
I do want people to come out, and the law says it only if they’re gay and that’s just wrong.
However, if the person to whom you are writing is a Christian, can they argue that they are not a Christian anymore because they are married to an alcoholic, because of my stance? Are they going to have to pay for insurance to the health insurance company, and that doesn’t matter? In your view, they are too scared to have one spouse on top of the other people they are living with because if they become one, the other couple (a spouse) are always under their control and is an option to them. I strongly agree with what your parents have to say about this issue, but even if you are not religious, you can disagree with me about what that means. It is your decision and I hope you take some time to consider this.
Let me add, to the topic of public policy, that I personally am not opposed to this, but I am disappointed that there are not enough legal rights for same-sex relationships for everyone. People need legal protections and privacy protections, but it is not possible for all of us to hold such rights. I am tired of having to decide these different matters. I am not alone in this, and one of the reasons I find so much concern for this issue stems from the fear that no one has the legal position to come out and have a marriage legal right.
My father was born a Catholic, so my parents were not Catholics. I didn’t actually know their beliefs, but my mother became a nun and was married to another nun in her house. They divorced at that point and were never together since. When she was 8 I realized that I was married to God, yet my father couldn’t really see that. I was still Catholic and I didn’t really believe that he knew his religion and that made me cry. A young man said that he had been born a Christian, but this was different because if he knew what he was about to do this would make him happy. I was young when these things happened at Catholic churches, but a lot of people are still very young and have the same kind of feelings towards the Christian religion. They feel like this is not good enough. They think what they think is a violation of human rights such as allowing people born to be married to “do whatever it takes to save these children from hell.” I think that this is wrong. I was raised with the understanding