Americans Values and assumptions

Americans uphold the ideal that everyone "is created equal" and has the same rights. This includes women as well as men of all ethnic and cultural groups living in the U.S. There are even laws that protect this "right to equality" in its various forms. The assumption that equality is a major point in American culture is beneficial for all the races and genders is very appropriate when a person comes from other country and have the opportunity to get a job. America started as an immigrant nation and has continued to be so. People all over the world come to America for several reasons. The question is: Equality among whom? Equality for groups rather than individuals. For poor communities, disabled children or groups that suffer racial and ethnic prejudices. The concept of justice in this case is what is important, and the moral equality needs ethical behavior.

The Americans are advantageously better educated compared to most of the cultures. Individualism and self-reliance are valued traits in American life, and society encourages people to make most personal, career, and educational decisions independently. Equality is one of the most cherished value and Americans believe that competition brings out the best in any individual. Also, communication is the most important quality for anyone to work on if they want to be part of an intercultural society, such as the American.

A very important part of this whole process of becoming independent is going away to college. In the United States when teenagers graduate from high school, they leave their homes to start college in a different city, and become independent. This is good because the student gets a new life with obligations that make it dependable of himself. Modern society finds important that people think independently and this is considered a positive skill, to have the absolute freedom to do what you want.

In the world, we meet different kinds of people every day, they come from different cultural background and this is a type of intercultural communication. Many Americans tend to be outgoing and are willing to assist international students, sometimes offering hospitality in their homes. You may find the competitive value disagreeable, especially if you come from a society that further the progress of cooperation rather than competition, but when I was sixteen years old I went to live in Arkansas for six months as an exchange student. With this experience I learned about American culture and I observed that competition, not only in grades but in sports, makes you do your best, and this attitude reflects on who people can be. The advantage of a good education is to give a person the chance to make the most of his or her talents. Learning is the most powerful tool in the world.

Americans view themselves as highly individualistic in their thoughts and actions. Individualism leads to privacy, which Americans see as desirable. According to the book The Myth of American Individualism, published Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. Individualism is "a man dependent on himself and refusing to conform to social standards and expectations. The individual stands alone against the wave of society, listening to his own heart and disregarding the thoughts of others. He dismisses any inter-personal connection that holds humanity together in families, friendships, and nations, arguing that man's only true support is himself. The true individual will follow his own path, and not look into the past or to other people for help; he will be a monument to himself and exclude any ideas that are not his own." I personally think that this idea of individualism is to extreme. Individualism can be a very good thing when people want to develop in life. For example, doing the possible to stay alone, have silence and privacy to study, and then get good grades and a diploma. Or concentrate in a job by working hard. This value is acceptable. On the other hand, I believe that happiness is only real when shared, and people who are individualist should know when to share emotions and needs. Since individualism has long been considered a defining criterion of American culture, I realized that independence of action and thought is one thing, isolation and egoism is other totally different.

Foreigners generally consider Americans very materialistic. Some people say they are all about making money. I suppose we can blame Hollywood and the media for all the influence about money, society values and encourages people to attain affluence and status, and since I live in Los Angeles I can say that people judge you for the car you have. Americans are materialistic and this is a fact. Anywhere you go you can find a store, a coffee place, car dealers or a mall. People can become obsessed with making money that it will solve any of life's problems. Materialism is, in the simplest form, a belief that reality simply consists of material objects. Is a good thing that Americans are hard workers and poverty here is not a really big issue comparing to other countries, but when I see someone at a restaurant ordering fillet mignon for their dog, I wonder why this person is not feeding the poor? This attitude is an example of individualism and materialism in a really bad way.

The notion of equality leads Americans to be quite informal in their general behaviors and relationships with others. Almost all the races in this country struggle for equality. The Asian-American, African-American and Latinos in general want to be treated and have the same exactly opportunities in education and work. Even with all the equality laws, racial-ethnic minorities are still not getting the same education that a white American access. Living with people of all races and ethnic backgrounds illustrates that people hold rigid opinions of members of a different social category.

Diversity, as it relates to thoughts, ideas, ethnicity and race is the most important thing to establish a free nation. A broad definition includes not only race, gender, ethnicity, age, national origin, religion and disability, but may include sexual orientation, values, personality, education, language, physical appearance, marital status, socio economic status and so forth. People need to have equal employment opportunity, no matter race or ethnicity. The UNESCO’s universal declaration on cultural diversity, which people can look at the site www.unesdoc.unesco.org, says that "Culture takes diverse forms across time and space. This diversity is embodied in the uniqueness and plurality of the identities of the groups and societies making up humankind. As a source of exchange, innovation and creativity, cultural diversity is as necessary for humankind as biodiversity is for nature." With the time more and more people are living in other countries and cultures and the world became a mixture of races and genders, just how many different societies, cultures, and ethnic groups make up the world's population is not certain.

All of the people should have an understanding of their own cultural assumptions and values. American society has forgone many challenges and obstacles yet it makes the strongest nation in the world. Observing some people in the United States is possible to notice that Americans believe that equality is always something that they strive to provide and maintain. Individualism, materialism and independence are very important, but the tranquility for accomplishing a family is extremely important. Also, when people regardless of their race and ethnicity, start to have the same opportunities as the white-Americans, the ethnic equality for the minority will succeed and we can celebrate diversity.

Desegregation In Arkansas

The Constitution of the United States of America, Amendment XVI states that: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States of America, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make ore enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." The United States government obliged all public schools to let black people join in. Apparently a man named Faubus wasn't following the law. About fifty years ago in the city of Little Rock, Arkansas, a govern called Orval Faubus separated nine black students from a high school, for no apparently reason, besides their black color. This action turned into a crisis. According to what Faubus said which you can look at the site npr.com, "the maintenance of the peace and order of a community is paramount to other considerations. And I found it necessary in order to preserve the peace and order in the community, and to protect the lives, even of the Negro students and the Negro people, to take the actions which I did." He also proclaimed that "if the black students attempted to enter Central, "blood would run in the streets." The school began to get national attention and the students were labeled as the Little Rock Nine.

Imagine is going to be your first day at school. There are many questions in your head. Will the teachers be friendly?
Will the students like you? Children can think about many things, but I believe the black ones were not expecting all that was due to happen in that school year.

The white population of Little Rock was furious that they were being forced to integrate their school, but after all the students were able to stay at the school. After the troop’s intervention and federal issues, the government understood that the constitution of the country is more powerful than the state. The idea of an all-white school is wildly unreasonable, illogical and very inappropriate. Faubus was essentially saying that blacks are not up to any objective measure of value.

Segregation was also present on the buses; blacks had to sit on the three back seats and if the bus was full and a white person got on the bus the black person had to give up his/her seat. There was an incident that sparked the whole pacifist movement from Martin Luther King. Rosa Parks was going home from a day shopping, the bus she was on was packed. A white person got on the bus and told her to get up and let him sit down. She refused profusely and was physically thrown of the bus. She was then arrested and imprisoned. This caused a boycott of the bus service from the black population. Many businesses went out of business and the segregation on the buses came to an end. This forced a bill to be passed, denouncing this kind of treatment of blacks and were ordered to stop this system.

According to the site www.philorum.org "racism derives from ignorance, fear (stemming from a socialized identity) or psychological inferiority (low self esteem)". The same source explains that Faubus was elected governor of Arkansas six times and served in the post for twelve years. Some people would think how come he was in charge for so long? Since when I was sixteen years old I went to live in Arkansas for six months as an exchange student, I can understand. The reason is that most of the Arkansas population is racist, black people there are set apart from the whites. Is not like California, Georgia or New York. It is very segregated. Also, people are very religious there, so I remember my step dad saying that “God did not create black people”, which I totally disagreed.

Melba Pattillo Beals was one of the nine students who attended Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. She wrote a book, called Warriors Don't Cry, which is the story of her when she was a child, who was one of the first who forced racial integration into the Little Rock school system. According to the book, during the crisis, Beals was assaulted and at risk: "[People yelled] 'get her,' 'kill her,' 'hang her,' 'we got us a nigger' . . . Parents were hitting, parents were throwing things. You would get tripped. People would just walk up and hit you in the face." On one occasion, Beals had acid sprayed in her eyes by a white student. I can imagine a black children going to school and being stop from a guard for the reason of her skin color. It doesn't make any sense. The guards wouldn't let black children inside the school to study? Segregation is unlawful and unconstitutional. According to the book, she lived with her family in a religious household. Her family had come to accept the fact that they would always be mistreated because of their color, this was seen as normal. Melba did not want to accept this as many others, and she was in a war against color discrimination. At the end of the school year, the black students moved out from Central High triumphantly. They had survived one year in the hostile territory of the school. They went through a lot of cruelty, but in the end the opened the doors for other black students, not only in Arkansas but in the whole country, to attend white schools. Melba was revolutionary. This was a huge victory for the entire African-American society.

Melba and the other students were people trying to find integration in America. They demonstrated bravery when they decided to proudly fight segregation and end the oppression of the white people. Their story is an inspiration to anyone who finds it hard to stand up for their beliefs. According to the site http://www.centralhigh57.org/The_Little_Rock_Nine.html, today Melba is an author and former journalist for People magazine and NBC and lives in San Francisco, and the other eight students are still alive and they all graduated from college and are successful. I believe that after everything they went through nothing in the world would stop them. They are example of perseverance. I admire them for outstanding achievements and their noble qualities.

There is a foundation called Little Rock Nine. According to their site, http://www.littlerock9.com, the foundation "was created to promote the ideals of justice and equality of opportunity for all. Forged in the crucible of fierce opposition to the educational pursuits of nine young black children, the Foundation is dedicated to the proposition that racist ideology will not dictate educational policies and practices in the twenty-first century." Their mission is an important assignment carried out for political purposes. People can help by supporting, buying a cap, which is a tax-deductible contribution, and help to make it possible for young people of color to go against ignorance and lack of skills. They all deserve a good opportunity.


There are still some traditionalists today who still believe that the races should not integrate. This story shows you how hard whites would work to stop Blacks from integrating and how far Blacks will go until equality win. There are scores of racist groups out in the world today. They mostly have the same belief, which is, that white people are the superior race. Americans eliminate the problem, but the fact is segregation and discrimination is unavoidable in every society in the world. This event helped settle new systems of integration, while fixing an example to the rest of the world, that old forms of segregation would no longer be accepted or prevalent. The valorous actions of the Little Rock Nine had made easier for the next generations’, without giving up; they opened the door of education for African Americans all across the nation.

Vogue magazine

Vogue is one of the best magazines in the women world, when reading it, people can find all kinds of propagandas, modern manners, nostalgia, fashion, interviews, trends, star search, beauty notes and much more. However, everybody is commenting about the last cover from april 2008, is even in the morning news. Is the first time a black male is on a cover. The matter is, because its a magazine for ladies, only two men were in the cover and they were george clooney and richard gere, two sexy symbols. What I think is that its almost a privilege to be the third man to appear in this kind of publication. According to the site sportswrap.com: "Gisele’s dress looks a lot like the one Naomi Watts wore in King Kong, no? They wouldn’t be trying to do a King Kong thing with King James, a black man, in the role of a giant monkey and a white woman as the damsel he’s trying to possess. Oh dear…some might take offense to that, don’t you think?"

This kind of comment is very cruel and unecessary, if you open the magazine you can find another picture and Lebron James is holding the brazilian model like a gentleman. The cover is just normal and shows one of the best players since Michael Jordan, and one of the most gorgeous women. The discrimination against Lebron is visible, in the site publication about the magazine there is a belief that all members of each race possess characteristics or abilities specifics to that race, and for that they can't be on a significant position that has nothing to do with sport or music. Besides, wouldn't someone like LeBron and Gisele get to approve a cover? If he had no objection to the photo, why should someone else? he's the one in the picture. That King Kong reference is far more insulting than any other implications about the photo. He makes those faces regularly on the court. LeBron is smart enough to know that it doesn't hurt to be on the cover of a popular magazine with a well known beautiful model.

This photo should be pleasing to all eyes. Some people see racism where there is none, Vogue cover is not racist, but the media and websites are. There is real racism that exists, this is not it. The only racism I see here is coming from the people who brought it up. Would all break loose if they put Giselle on the cover with a white player, doing the same pose? Why is this racial stereotypes? If the athlete was white, would it be racial stereotypes?

With all the acusations of racism, at first glance I would agree this could be taken the wrong way, why can’t he be wearing a suit and looking fashionable? Is a fashion magazine,not a sportive one,we don’t need him in a jersey and shorts. Also, he looks oddly agressive next to her and she looks weirdly delicate. But that's exacly who they are, and that cover should be expected.The gossip is probably around because the vogue magazine always presents women models in the cover, and this broke a rule in two ways, since he is a man and african american.

I didn't think about race at all. I saw an athlete and a fashion model, two very different physical types. LeBron James is a basketball player so they want to see this. He’s in shorts much like he would be normally dressed on court, those are the tools of his trade. The tools of her trade are a a tight dress , smile, a pair of heels and a well done hair.

Racism is something extremely difficult to control in today’s world, as we live in a fairly democratic world people have a right to air their opinions. It is done in a sensitive way. Laws have been passed making it illegal to be racist to ethnic citizens. That has helped the society but still it exists in society today.People are not born racist. Most children who grow up in an area that is mixed and their parent’s are racist grow up not being racist; on the other hand, people that have racist parents and live in predominantly once race neighbourhood grow up being racists.

The cover has caused a lot of gossip over whether the shot encourage racial stereotypes, now everybody that looks at the cover will notice the "kink konk" picture. That was a ridiculous comparation.Gisele looks like she is having a blast, not like she is being taken away by King Kong.There are much more important issues to deal in this world than trying to find trouble where none was meant. People are making a big deal about this, no person with common sense would look at this cover and think anything other than it's a big tough basketball player and a pretty model on the cover. For example: Economy, poverty, global warming, education and racism are issues that really matter, this cover controversy is so crazy that can't be considered racist, there is just nothing wrong with it. Vogue’s spokesman, Patrick O’Connell, says the magazine “sought to celebrate two superstars at the top of their game.” I see two people who have made it to the top of their careers at such a young age, have more money and popularity than they know what to do with and have made their mark in two diversely different ways." Sometimes I think people are so intent on finding the racial angle to everything that they see it where it's not present.

The mentality of superiority over other races that is passed on from generation to generation still remains a major cause of racism. Many people believe that it depends on if a person was brought into the world as a racist,but I find that after growing up this person can change its mind by itself. However, my impression is that we live in a world where some one always seems to find a racially motivated conspiracy in everything. This is another example of media creating a news story that doesn't exist, the fact that this is the first black male on the cover means Vogue magazine is attempting to move forward and forward is where we should be going. All kinds of other magazines should take it as an example and display more covers and reportages with/about black people.

Since when is a woman standing next to a man racist? This is a case of racism being in the mind of the beholder, those making the accusation that this is a racist cover need to look more carefully at their own prejudices. The face compared to an ape is a representation of the intensity that James shows on the court, I saw an exceptional athlete and basketball star standing next to a pretty woman, their skin tone was not my first thought. There is nothing racially insensitive about the cover of Vogue, Giselle looks more like a perfectly content piece on the arm of a professional athlete. I hope they would not see a gorilla.

The picture I selected for my blog can disapprove all that I wrote, but I choose it just because I think it was a simple coincidence between the pictures. She’s not being held below the waste and being dragged. She’s standing. I don't see any type of abrupt or symbolic racism in the photo, people are taking this too far. It looks like any action shot taken in a photo shoot, If he doesn't mind, why should the world care? Why is there so much negativity focused toward this cover? I choose to focus on the positive. It was a great move for Vogue to have a young, African American man on their cover for the first time. Lebron James is a huge icon for this generation. Some people will see racism and controversy in every comment or picture, and that will probably never be able to be controlled. I honestly don't believe Vogue would intentionally put anything they thought would even be perceived in that way on the cover.

Generally when people are unaccustomed to something they judge it. Racism is ignorance and to end we must be able to understand each other. Race will always be an issue, but I believe we need to change society by teaching the children about it, then we can seek an end for racism. Magazine covers are made to get a strong reaction. Anyone who see James as King Kong is a racist. It's that simple.