Equality in the Land of the Free

         Equality in the Land of the Free

            Throughout the course of American history, equal rights for all have always been a hotly debated topic. Even in today’s day and age, there are many groups that still feel that they are treated unequally. For example, there are women who still believe they receive unequal pay, blacks who are convinced that they are primary targets of our society’s criminal defense system, and many more (Including Natives, Asians, etc.) However, in defense of our founding fathers and the words spoken in the Declaration of Independence, I will try to approach this topic from a different point of view. Our founding fathers had, In their mind, only one concept upon which they based the document, that being, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Now looking back on this we can easily claim that this statement was in a sense one hypocritical to make, as even within our nation we practiced slavery, and women played very minor roles in our society, with most property and riches belonging to the men. However, in this same sense the Declaration of the independence never specifically took away from women or from blacks. In fact those “minorities” (Quotations as I don’t see women to be a minority as they are fifty percent of the human population) were probably better off in a free America than they were in an America struggling for its independence.

At the end of the day the inequality faced by Women and Blacks, though unfair by all means, are social issues of how the world operated at the time of our countries independence rather than an issue faced only by America.

The Joys of Week One English

            In a world as expansive as the one we find ourselves living in, there are many breathtaking beauties and wonders all around us. From everything, spanning from the Grand canyon, to others as simple as the rising and setting of the sun, beauty really has found its way into our daily lives. Perhaps the most beautiful phenomenon of them all however, is the first week of English here at troy high. It is full of many wonders, such as acquiring a notebook, alphabetical seating, and the annual “First Vocab Quiz” that always seems to have alliteration as one of the terms to learn. The list goes on and on, but nothing else can even hope to compete with the occurrence that has come to steal my heart, Summer Reading. There’s just too many layers to the beauty of what is known to us as “summer reading”, for me to fully describe its elegance. But to put it simply, I can’t be the only one that spends every day of my summer going to bed with the comforting thought of three books and three essays looming in the near future in my head. I can’t be the only one who finds the concept of reading gripping and relatable classics – such as “The Good Earth” by Pearl S. Buck, or “In the Time of the Butterflies” by Julia Alverez – to be anything short of exhilarating! And these joys are only the half of it. I can’t be the only one who finds joy in scouring 1200 pages worth of sheer and utter brilliance, searching for a couple of quotes. I can’t be the only person who spent the last few days of his summer (not there is ANYTHING else in this world and its entirety that I would rather be doing, mind you) vigorously re-reading my assignments over and over to ensure that they are perfect to every last letter. The best part to this journey spanning three months however, is knowing that the joy and hard work that I poured into these assignments was well rewarded. In fair exchange for the countless hours of bypassing the stories of the three wonderful novels assigned to me in order to find several usable quotes for these assignments, I am rewarded with the satisfaction of being able to claim that (If my mathematical calculations are correct) each assignment, assuming that for maximum enjoyment of reading throughout the summer I read a book a month, took roughly four weeks to complete, and that they are worth roughly Fifty Percent of our first weekly vocab quiz, while taking roughly four times more to prepare and write! (Wow, run on sentences that you can’t focus through, sounds like the SAT reading section.) That’s roughly four times the work for half the number of points! Well I hope that moving forward we can all learn to appreciate the smaller beauties in life, like summer reading for example!

P.S. Sorry if individuals who dislike summer reading took offence, I just find that to be a very un-relatable stance on this subject.