Holiday Homework

I'm taking it easy on you over the break.  All you have to do is this:

Write me a four-paragraph e-mail.  Reflect on the first four months of the school year.  Include highlights of social studies for you, things you plan to do to improve, and things that we could to improve the class in general.  You can also tell me how your Christmas/holiday is.  I should receive the e-mail any time before we return to school on January 3.

I'd highly recommend that you take the time to complete an extra credit assignment too!
Update: A list of options for your extra credit assignments is listed here: http://ccaahistory.blogspot.com/2011/11/perennial-extra-credit-assignments.html

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and happy new year!

Obama Refers to Our Wednesday Lesson

On Wednesday, we simulated a car assembly line in our eighth grade classes, with varying degrees of success.  Then we learned how Henry Ford used the assembly line to produce cars cheaply and efficiently, making them affordable to most Americans.  The car changed American lifestyles in many ways.  But Ford also made a crucial decision for his workers: he'd pay them good wages.  Remember what we read in Joy Hakim's The Age of Extremes:

Henry Ford understood that if ordinary people were going to buy new products, they needed to earn reasonable wages.  So, in 1914, when the average American worker earned $2.40 a day for a nine-hour day, Henry Ford announced that he would pay his workers $5 a day for an eight-hour day.  That was an astonishing decision.  It was also smart.  That $5 a day meant that workers at the Ford Motor Company could afford to buy Ford cars.  Henry Ford was creating his own customers.

If you've been paying attention to the news, you know that many people are complaining about income inequality in America: the rich keep getting richer, while everyone else just stays the same or gets poorer.  This is the big message of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

And now, President Obama is getting in the act.  On Tuesday, he gave a major speech in Kansas, criticizing corporations for paying their workers too little and generally lamenting income inequality in America.  But there's more: he used Henry Ford to strengthen his argument!

The typical CEO who used to earn about 30 times more than his or her workers now earns 110 times more. And yet, over the last decade, the incomes of most Americans have actually fallen by about six percent. This kind of inequality–a level we haven’t seen since the Great Depression–hurts us all. When middle-class families can no longer afford to buy the goods and services that businesses are selling, it drags down the entire economy, from top to bottom. America was built on the idea of broad-based prosperity–that’s why a CEO like Henry Ford made it his mission to pay his workers enough so that they could buy the cars they made.

There, he called for the rich to pay higher taxes, claiming that this would help poor and middle-class people to get better wages.

[W]hen President Clinton first proposed these tax increases, folks in Congress predicted they would kill jobs and lead to another recession.  Instead, our economy created nearly 23 million jobs and we eliminated the deficit. Today, the wealthiest Americans are paying the lowest taxes in over half a century...Under President Clinton, the top rate was only about 39%. Today, thanks to loopholes and shelters, a quarter of all millionaires now pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1%. One percent. This is the height of unfairness. It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay a higher tax rate than somebody pulling in $50 million...And I know that many of our wealthiest citizens would agree to contribute a little more if it meant reducing the deficit and strengthening the economy that made their success possible.

Well, what do you think?  Are you surprised by President Obama's arguments?  Are you surprised by the income inequality that he describes?  Why do you think he referred to Henry Ford?  Would you support higher taxes on the rich?  Do you think that would really make our economy better?

Violating the 14th Amendment Today?

Hey all, it's been a while since you mostly ignored my post on Lupe Fiasco.  Grr.  Thanks, Daphne, for being willing to put fingers to keyboard and share on that topic.

Today, though, I'm writing about something entirely relevant to what we've studied in the past two weeks: the Fourteenth Amendment.  As you know, it grants citizenship as a birthright to all Americans, it requires state laws to adhere to the Bill of Rights, and--most importantly for today--it grants equal protection of the law to all people.  In other words, if the government is going to make laws that treat different groups of people differently, it had better have a good reason for doing so.

According to Linda Greenhouse, Florida is violating the equal protection clause of the Constitution.  How?  Florida runs a state university system.  Florida charges much higher tuition to students who come from outside the state than to students who are residents of the state.  That's how all states run their universities.  If you go to a SUNY school, you will pay much less in tuition than a student who comes from New Jersey or Pennsylvania.

However, Florida has decided to charge the higher, out-of-state tuition to the children of illegal immigrants.  These are students who were born in the United States--in Florida--so, according to the Constitution, they are American citizens and residents of Florida.  But, because of their parents' immigrant status, they are being charged a higher rate.

Linda Greenhouse calls this "perhaps the most bizarre and pointless anti-immigrant policy" that she's heard of.


She continues: "Consider the difference between in-state and non-resident tuition at the University of Florida: $5,700 a year versus $27,936. The disparity is similar at the state’s community colleges, although the price tags are lower. It is the difference between a college education and none."


She is glad to hear that some students have decided to sue to overturn this policy: "The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status on behalf of 'all past, present, and future United States citizens' affected by the policy, names five individual plaintiffs. Two were forced for financial reasons to withdraw from Miami Dade College when the policy took effect. Two others can’t afford to take all the credits necessary to complete their degrees on time, and one, who would have received a full scholarship as a resident, couldn’t afford to enroll at all. Four were born in Miami and one in Los Angeles. All are eligible to be president of the United States."


What are your reactions to this policy?  Are you surprised that it exists?  What should be done about it?  Is there anything that you can or should do to deal with this policy?

Lupe Fiasco Knows His Stuff

Got to tell you how surprised I've been as I've listened to Lupe Fiasco's new album, Lasers.  I actually saw him live at a music festival a few years ago, but at that point, I thought he was just Kanye West's Chicago buddy who was able to get some airplay with "Superstar."  I bought the album in large part because he gives a shout-out to inner-city teachers in "The Show Goes On."

Apparently, there is much more to this man.  His actual name is Wasalu Muhammad Jaco and he was born in Chicago in 1982, the son of a gourmet chef and a Black Panther-turned-operating plant engineer.  At first, he didn't like hip-hop because he was disgusted by its use of vulgarity.  When he entered sixth grade, he moved in with his father in a building next to a crack house.  As Lupe tells it:

I grew up in the hood around prostitutes, drug dealers, killers, and gangbangers, but I also grew up juxtaposed: On the doorknob outside of our apartment, there was blood from some guy who got shot; but inside, there was National Geographic magazines and encyclopedias and a little library bookshelf situation. And we didn't have cable, so we didn't have the luxury of having our brains washed by MTV. We watched public television – cooking shows and stuff like that.

His music is smart.  He knows how to make a good beat, he knows what songs to sample to generate monster hits, and he writes deep and thoughtful lyrics.  He uses the n-word in about half his songs on the new album, and I'm not sure why, but that is the only concern that I have with recommending this music to you.  No Dre-style gangsta garbage or Biggie-type misogyny on this record.

And (did you see this coming?) I'm especially impressed with his knowledge of history and politics.  He takes shots at conservative talk show hosts Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh.  He critiques the oppressive mentality that traps so many urban African-American kids.  He even shares with some of you the unfortunate opinion that it's not worth it to exercise his right to vote.

I find his song "All Black Everything" to be the most interesting on the album.  He does a historical thought experiment: "So there were no slaves in our history, were no slave ships, were no misery...see I fell asleep and I had a dream, it was all black everything."  So, if there were no slavery, what would the world have been like, Lupe?

Uh, and we ain't get exploited
White man ain't feared it so he did not destroy it
We ain't work for free, see they had to employ it
Built it up together so we equally appointed
First 400 years, see we actually enjoyed it
Constitution written by W.E.B. Du Bois
Were no Reconstructions, Civil War got avoided
Little black sambo grows up to be a lawyer
Extra extra on the news stands
Black woman voted head of Ku Klux Klan
Malcolm Little dies as an old man
Martin Luther King read the eulogy for him

How many key social studies terms can you drop in one verse?  It's almost like he was trying to write a rap song to teach high school students about U.S. history, but he left that to a bigger nerd in NYC.

So, dear students, what do you think of Lupe Fiasco?  What are your reactions to his life story?  Do you like his music?  Can you explain what Lupe is saying in the verse I've quoted above?  What does Lupe's music say about the value of hip-hop?  What do you appreciate about it?

Perennial Extra Credit Assignments

If you are looking to boost your grade, you can always do one of the following assignments for extra credit: write a film or book review.

If you want to write a review, you can:

·         Watch a PBS American Experience documentary or an episode of the PBS show Frontline.  Watch the entire film and then write a film review.

American Experience: www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/?film-online

Frontline: www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/view

·         Read a book about U.S. history and then write a book review.  Ask Mr. Toomajian for a book recommendation or suggest a book and ask Mr. Toomajian if he will approve it.

In your review, you must:

·         Summarize the events in the movie, show, or book.

·         Explain what you learned from the movie, show, or book and describe how it relates to the concepts that we've learned in class.

·         Give your opinion about the movie, show, or book: what surprised you, what feelings you had while watching it, etc.

The review must be in your own words and must be typed and double-spaced in 12-point Times New Roman font.  Use perfect grammar and spelling.  Indent paragraphs and organize your review logically with an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.  Your grade on this review will help to boost your project and test grades.

My Favorite World Series Game

In about an hour, we'll say goodbye to October.  That means that baseball season is over, and, indeed, just a few days ago, the World Series ended with a Game 7 win by the St. Louis Cardinals.  Game 6 is being hailed as one of the best World Series games of all time: twice, the Texas Rangers were one strike away from winning the game and thus winning the series; twice, the Cardinals came back to tie the game; the Cardinals won in the 11th inning.

This World Series was so exciting that it brought me back to my favorite World Series--1996--the first Yankee Series win that I remember well.   (Argenis wears a 1996 Yankees World Series hat and I highly appreciate it.)  The best game in that series was Game 4.  The Yankees were down two games to one, playing in Atlanta, and they needed a win in Game 4 to have a good chance of capturing a World Series victory.  But the Yanks fell behind 6-0 by the fifth inning.  They clawed back to 6-3 by the eighth inning, when backup catcher Jim Leyritz came to the plate.  Off the Braves' best relief pitcher, Leyritz launched a clutch three-run homer to left field, over the head of a 19-year-old Braves rookie named Andruw Jones.  The Yankees had tied the game and they would win it in the 10th inning.  The following Saturday, they won the World Series back home in the Bronx.

What is your favorite World Series game?  Why?  What are your favorite baseball memories?  Which games of the past do you wish you'd been alive to see?

Debating Occupy Wall Street

If you've been in my Regents class, you may be aware that I have some strong, somewhat conflicted feelings about the Occupy Wall Street movement. Regardless, the movement is growing, and it will be in history books twenty years from now, so, as students of history, we have to pay attention.

So I ask you: What do you think about the OWS movement? Do you believe in what OWS stands for? Do you know what they stand for? Do you think their method of protest can lead to positive changes for United States?

There have been some fantastic essays considering these very questions. I'd encourage you to take a look at these two sites and find out what others think about OWS.

Can Occupy Wall Street Spark a Revolution?  from The New York Times
"If you stopped by Zuccotti Park in New York and asked 10 protesters what their goals were for Occupy Wall Street, you might get 10 different answers. This has led some reports to call the group unfocused, but that may be normal for an emerging movement: would 10 young Egyptians in Tahrir Square in January have been any more unanimous?

One protester, in an interview that Fox News has not aired, said he and others were calling for 'more economic justice, social justice — Jesus stuff — as far as feeding the poor, health care for the sick.' Another protester, a former Marine who was elected by Occupy Wall Street participants to speak for them, told NPR that he wanted to overthrow the government and reconstruct it. Will these big ideas get lost now that labor unions and other established interests are joining forces with Occupy Wall Street, bringing their more concrete demands?

The protest already is more popular than Congress. So what are the demonstrators doing right, and what could they be doing better? Do these people, like others worldwide who are disillusioned with their governments, have the potential to spark a mass movement? What are they missing?"
--From the NYTimes website

Liberalism and Occupy Wall Street: A TNR Symposium from The New Republic
"Last week, in our editorial, TNR asked: 'How should liberals feel about Occupy Wall Street?' The magazine took a skeptical view of the protests; a number of our writers (John B. Judis, Jonathan Cohn, and Timothy Noah) have taken a more positive stance. Over the next week, we’ll be publishing a symposium at TNR Online in which a number of prominent liberal thinkers offer their answers to this question."
--From the TNR website