Octavian by M.T. Anderson Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Octavian by M.T. Anderson - Essay Example Anderson. The book tells the story of Octavian, a boy of African-American heritage who lives with his mother at The Novanglian College of Lucidity. He is brought up among scientists and philosophers and is given luxurious treatment throughout his life. In the first volume, we learn about the education of Octavian; he is proficient in music and religious studies, and music studies have made him a talented violinist. Initially Octavian was under the impression, or it could be that he had the illusion, that each of the members living at â€Å"The Novanglian College of Lucidity† is equal. However, as a result of a mistake committed by his mother, both of them are thrown out of the college and have to live with Richard Sharpe. Octavian believed that he was a free member of the Utopian society but his dreams are shattered by Sharpe’s plan to experiment on him to prove that the African race is inferior to white and other races. Thus Octavian comes to find out the reality of li ving in the old America.

Business Case Analysis Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Business Case Analysis - Term Paper Example Talking about the mission and vision of the company, it can be said that vision of a company represents the long terms goals, while the mission comprises of multiple short term goals. Talking on this note, it can be said that the company Pfizer’s long term goal is tremendously focused on the global well being. Talking on this note, it can be said that the vision of Pfizer is to work together for the development of a better world (Pfizer-a, 2011). Talking about the global pharmaceutical giant’s mission statement, it is very interesting to note that the company’s focus is to apply science and other global resources for the improvement of health of human life at every stage (Pfizer-b, n.d). The company also tries to focus on various key values which comprises of integrity, performance, innovation, collaboration, respect for people, care for community, leadership, focus on quality as well as customer (Pfizer-c, 2009). While analyzing the mission and vision statement, that the company has developed in regards to serving the markets of emerging as well as developed economies, it has to be said in these regards that the goals of both long and short term are highly in perfect compatibility and synchronization with the core competencies and strengths of the organization. B. It is of considerable importance to mention that the generic strategies of Porter are being designed on the framework of competitive edge as well as competitive advantage. Talking more the competitive edge achieved by the firms, it can be said that the edge factor coupled with the issues of competitive advantage leads to the process of formation of various scenarios like cost leadership, differentiation, cost focus, as well as focus on differentiation. It is of significant importance to mention that the firms needs to focus on developing their own unique kind of competitive advantage by trying to develop on one of the four scenarios, by using their strengths of business processes as well as the opportunity available in the market (Generic Strategies pdf). Talking about Pfizer, it can be said that the value chain activities of Pfizer is much diversified in nature. It is of significant importance to mention that for the purpose of generating and delivering values to the company’s stakeholders, Pfizer focuses on the process of employing and exploiting multiple key value points that are developed by the company to attain simultaneous growth and delivery of values. It is important to note, that Pfizer tries to follow more of a differentiation sort of strategy. Talking on this note, it can be said that the strategy of differentiation is often achieved by a company through the application of various business process that helps in superior service with regards to the price of the product or service of the company. It is important to mention that the company, apart from trying to gain a quality based advantage, also tries to achieve and excel in regards to te chnical innovation so as to increase process efficiency. This helps in a great way to communicate to the consumers about the company’s steady endeavours towards providing maximum amount of beneficial and related value (Stonehouse & et.al, 2007, p. 177). It is interesting to note that Pfizer in an attempt to achieve its differentiation strategy has focused in developing significant amount of edge in

Discrimination Throughout The Criminal Justice System Criminology Essay

Discrimination Throughout The Criminal Justice System Criminology Essay There is no doubt but that there were fundamental errors. The investigation was marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officers. (Macpherson, 1999: 317, para. 46:1) Critically assess this extract from the Macpherson report. Introduction Racist discrimination throughout the Criminal Justice System (CJS) in the United Kingdom (UK) is a controversial but pervasive issue. There is an undeniable over-representation of ethnic minorities; Africa/Caribbeans in particular are approximately four times as likely to be arrested as white people, even though they only represent around 2% of our total population. Ethnic areas tend to be subject to more proactive policing (Bowling and Phillips 2002 p.97) discrimination in cautioning and sentencing and use of The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) stop and search powers. The Macpherson report of 1999 made following the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence focused on institutional racism through unwitting prejudice towards minorities which may cause them disadvantage and this may contribute to the racial discrimination towards black people and minorities throughout the (Lea 2000 p.230). This institutional racism has caused serious problems in the criminal justice system, in a variety of ways, which will be examined throughout the course of this essay. This essay will argue that undoubtedly institutional racism and failings on the part of leading officers did mar the whole investigation into Lawrences murder, but that wider historical, socio-economic and demographic factors bear as much responsibility. The Macpherson Report and Institutional Racism The Macpherson Report was made following the tragic death and racist murder of Stephen Lawrence. The black teenager from Eltham, South-East London named Stephen Lawrence was stabbed to death while waiting for a bus on the evening of 22 April 1993. After the initial investigation, five suspects were arrested but never convicted due to a series of police errors and investigational incompetence that has been widely reported in the press and the subject for a reassessment of the entire criminal justice system. It was suggested by Lawrences friends and parents during the course of investigation that the murder had a racist motive and that Lawrence was the subject of a racist homicide precisely because he was black. The media furore surrounding the murder investigation suggested that the handling of the case by the police and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was affected by issues of race leading to an inquiry. Macpherson (1999) concluded the investigation was marred by professional incompetence, institutional racism and failure of leadership by senior officers. The report documented the denial that the murder was even racially motivated, by five of the leading officers who were responsible for investigating the murder of Lawrence. This included a serious failure to examine the evidence with a clear eye and a racial stereotyping of the initial murder suspect Duwayne Brooks at the scene of the crime. In this sense, there serious failings in the Lawrence murder enquiry can be said to have been directly the result of the incompetence of the leading officers, but those failings are the result of a more endemic institutional racism. Institutional Racism Defined Institutional racism, which is also known as structural racism or systemic racism is any type of racist discrimination occurring specifically within institutions such as government bodies; public bodies; universities and businesses and large corporations. Sir William Macpherson of Cluny used the term to describe what he felt was: the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin, which can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes, and behaviour, which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping, which disadvantages minority ethnic people (Metropolitan police still institutionally racist, The Guardian, 22 April 2003) Institutional racism is one of three forms of racism: (i) Personally-mediated, (ii) internalized, and (iii) institutional. The term institutional racism actually originated with Stokely Carmichael (Johnson 1990). Institutional racism is the varied access to the goods, services, and opportunities of society as a result of deeply rooted endemic and often unconsciously adopted practices (Lea 2000). When this differential treatment becomes an essential aspect of institutions, it becomes common practice, making it difficult to rectify and the actions of new members to the institutions are reinforced by the behaviour of the old members. Another difficulty in reducing institutionalized racism is that there is no sole, true identifiable perpetrator. It is difficult to rectify as there is no one to blame but society and the other cultural and historical factors contributing to the institutional racism in the Metropolitan police will be examined below. Historical Background to Institutional Racism There is a strong historical relationship between crime, ethnicity and racism. Modern race ideas espoused by Hume, Kant and Gobineau (Apter 1999), saw the Age of Reason as being synonymous with white people. The concept of white supremacy (Bowling and Phillips 2002) was deeply embedded in British Imperialist ideals. The initial encouragement of the influx of ethnic minorities into the UK after World War II gave way to the hostile political climate of the 1960s and Enoch Powells rivers of blood (Chilton 2003 p.38). This lead to fractious relations between the police and black minorities throughout the 1970s, which culminated in a public image of black people as disorderly and riotous or inherently criminal. After the riots of the 1980s Lord Scarman (1986) issued a report emphasising the negative effects of oppressive policing. The media sensationalism of the early 1980s further embedded ideas of black and Asian criminality in the public consciousness. This myth inspires practices such as more proactive policing and this leads to the production of statistics which further perpetrate the myth. Generally studies have shown that ethnic minorities tend to have a lower academic achievement leading to higher levels of unemployment, but the question of whether this leads to an actual increase in offending remains somewhat illusive, the official statistics are all somewhat flawed as they tend to focus on the end result and not the process involved in the criminalization of minorities, but they are useful in that they show who is processed by the Criminal Justice System. Nature of Racist Offending The perpetrators of racially motivated crime are typically white males aged 16-25 yrs. Attacks most frequently occur with groups or gangs of offenders. Sibbitts study (1997) showed after having interviewed racist offenders and their wider community that the offenders racist views typically shared by their community and that this was a psychological factor legitimising their actions. In the past thirty five years there have been officially only 100 racially motivated killings within the UK, but these are only those which have been reported. Another factor in increased racist offending is the role of increasing size of ethnic populations and white Britains perception of them as receiving preferential treatment and access to scarce social and economic resources (Goldhagen 1996). Lack of witnesses and Victim reporting Although it has been suggested that around 85 % of crime against ethnic minorities is not racially motivated, even such an empirically unreliable statistic leaves a staggering 15% that are: patterns for victimization showed ethnic minorities were at greater risk of victimization relative to their white counterparts (British Crime Survey (BCS) 1988). Although institutional racism can account for some of the reasons why these crimes are rarely punished, victimisation of ethnic minorities within a broader community and their fear of more crime, threat and abuse stops them from coming forward to the police to report racially motivated crimes. The BCS (2000) showed that although household victimization rates for Black people and whites were more similar Asians were at greater risk. It is also impossible to ignore the wider socio-economic and demographic factors which are undeniably relevant when it comes to the perpetration and prosecution of racist crime. The concentration of ethnic minorities into high-crime areas and their younger age structure explain higher risk: unemployment, inner-city residence, lack of academic qualifications are all relevant factors, Further incidences of institutional racism in Macpherson Report Further suggestion of institutional racism discrimination can be found in the police use of stop and search powers, which was criticised in the Macpherson Report. Stop and search powers provide a context for the distrust of the police felt by ethnic minorities. Newburn, Shiner and Hayman in 2001 found that the police intrusion and the formal action taken were greater where the suspect was not white more stops, more searches and more intrusion. Lea (2000) in his article comments on this institutional racism and criticises the Macpherson Reports weak attempts to improve this, citing a lack of social interaction between officers and ethnic minorities as the cause of racist stereotyping. Lea reconstructs this citing power to cause trouble for the police and not race as the cause of discrimination. Stop and search makes a modest but significant contribution to the over-representation of blacks in the arrest population. The fact that only 8% of stop and searches in ethnic minorities lead to arrest further implies racial discrimination further down the CJS, although the 2000 BCS found that ethnic origin was only a predicator for car and not foot stops. African/Caribbean people make up about 2% of the total population of the UK but comprise 10% of male and 12% of female prisoners. These prison numbers are partly the result of a process of criminalization. This process begins with over-policing of ethnic areas. There tends to be an increased deployment of officers in minority areas and this may explain the four-fold arrest rate for black people in 1999/2000 compared to their numbers in the general population. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) can terminate cases before they reach the courtroom, diverting offenders from further action. The CPS has to consider whether there is a reasonable prospect of conviction. 20% of cases against black people were terminated compared to only 12% against whites and a huge 27% against Asians. This seems to evidence racial discrimination at earlier stages in the CJS, such as arrests, and lack of cautioning and a selective presumption of guilt by the police force. Perhaps this breaking in the chain o f criminalization of ethnic minorities can be explained by the less subjective nature of decisions made by the CPS and the stringent guidance provided in the code for Crown prosecutors. Women are also subject to discrimination in the CJS, in particular black women who represent 25% of the female prison population. However the number of Asian women in prison remains consistently low. Statistics showing that women are favourably treated at the sentencing stage, may be misleading because women tend to commit different types of offences to men, theft for example is the prominent offence committed by women. Conclusion The Lawrence report (Lea 2000) defined institutional racism as the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people. The report went on to say that institutional racism persists because of the failure of the organisation openly and adequately to recognise and address its existence and causes by policy, example and leadership. Without recognition and action to eliminate such racism it can prevail as part of the ethos or culture of the organisation. The use of the phrase unwitting in the Stephen Lawrence Report allowed people to accept that there had been unintended disadvantage to ethnic minorities. It must be submitted in conclusion that the flaws into the inquiry of the Lawrence murder and the general lack of competence involving investigations where a murder of crime has an alleged racist element were a result of both institutional racism and a lack of competence by the five leading investigating offers. However, institutional racism is a difficult concept from which to attribute blame, it is ingrained in institutions gradually and may often be an entirely unconsciously followed pattern of differential treatment. The socio-political and historical factors within our society are equally to blame and must be addressed in order to prevent further reoccurrences. Word count: 1978

Montgomery Bus Boycott Essay -- Civil Rights

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign started in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama. The law said that black people had to sit in the back of the bus while the the white people sat in the front. Bus drivers often referred to black people on the bus as nigger, black cow, or black ape. Blacks had to pay in the front of the bus and they had to get off to go threw the side door to sit in the back. Dr. Martin Luther King jr., was born on January 15,1929 but died April 4, 1968. Martin king attended segregated public schools in Georgia. Dr. king was so smart that he graduated from high school at the age of 15 and got a B.A degree in 1948 from an all time best black college back then named Morehouse. When Dr. King went to Boston he met and married Coretta Scott. Rosa Parks was born Rosa McCauley in Tuskegee, Alabama. No one really knew about her childhood, they only knew about the how she refused to give up her seat to a white man on the bus. The boycott first started when Rosa Parks didn?t give up her seat after asked about two or three times. Rosa Parks is known for touching off the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 that led to the extreme popularity of Dr. King. The Montgomery improvement association, which is best known as the M.I.A, organized a car pool of nearly three hundred cars to drive people that need transportation. The sprit and the unity of the Negro community was stronger than it had ever been. Many African-Americans prayed for this day to come for years until Rosa Parks made that happen. The Montgomery boycott officially started on December 1, 1955 and that same month but in the year of 1949 movement to desegregate the buss started. The movement started on the day in 1949 when a black profes... ...osa parks also had an unpublished speech about the boycott and setting her people ( blacks) free. Jo Ann Robinson was the one who tried to help Rosa parks but she didn?t succeed. She was an educated woman, a professor at the all-black Alabama state college and a member of the women?s political council in Montgomery. On November 13, 1956 the Supreme Court ruled that the law was unconstitutional. The boycott had several important results and one of the best results was and still is, is that blacks and whites and other race?s can sit anywhere and together on the bus. They can even go to the same school together. The Montgomery bus boycott segregation on Montgomery buses led to the founding of the SCLC and today there are so many people still talking about it. A few churches in Alabama thanked everyone that was part of the march and that ended the boycott for good.

Behaviorism Theory

Behaviorist theorists believe that behavior is shaped deliberately by forces in the environment and that the type of person and actions desired can be the product of design. In other words, behavior is determined by others, rather than by our own free will. By carefully shaping desirable behavior, morality and information is learned. Learners will acquire and remember responses that lead to satisfying aftereffects. Repetition of a meaningful connection results in learning. If the student is ready for the connection, learning is enhanced; if not, learning is inhibited. Motivation to learn is the satisfying aftereffect, or reinforcement.Behaviorism is linked with empiricism, which stresses scientific information and observation, rather than subjective or metaphysical realities. Behaviorists search for laws that govern human behavior, like scientists who look for pattern sin empirical events. Change in behavior must be observable; internal thought processes are not considered. Ivan Pavl ov's research on using the reinforcement of a bell sound when food was presented to a dog and finding the sound alone would make a dog salivate after several presentations of the conditioned stimulus, was the beginning of behaviorist approaches.Learning occurs as a result of responses to stimuli in the environment that are reinforced by adults and others, as well as from feedback from actions on objects. The teacher can help students learn by conditioning them through identifying the desired behaviors in measurable, observable terms, recording these behaviors and their frequencies, identifying appropriate reinforcers for each desired behavior, and providing the reinforcer as soon as the student displays the behavior.For example, if children are supposed to raise hands to get called on, we might reinforce a child who raises his hand by using praise, â€Å"Thank you for raising your hand. † Other influential behaviorists include B. F. Skinner (1904-1990) and James B. Watson (18 78-1958). Cognitivism/Constructivism Cognitivists or Constructivists believe that the learner actively constructs his or her own understandings of reality through interaction with objects, events, and people in the environment, and reflecting on these interactions.Early perceptual psychologists (Gestalt psychology) focused on the making of wholes from bits and pieces of objects and events in the world, believing that meaning was the construction in the brain of patterns from these pieces. For learning to occur, an event, object, or experience must conflict with what the learner already knows. Therefore, the learner's previous experiences determine what can be learned. Motivation to learn is experiencing conflict with what one knows, which causes an imbalance, which triggers a quest to restore the equilibrium.Piaget described intelligent behavior as adaptation. The learner organizes his or her understanding in organized structures. At the simplest level, these are called schemes. Whe n something new is presented, the learner must modify these structures in order to deal with the new information. This process, called equilibration, is the balancing between what is assimilated (the new) and accommodation, the change in structure. The child goes through four distinct stages or levels in his or her understandings of the world.Some constructivists (particularly Vygotsky) emphasize the shared, social construction of knowledge, believing that the particular social and cultural context and the interactions of novices with more expert thinkers (usually adult) facilitate or scaffold the learning process. The teacher mediates between the new material to be learned and the learner's level of readiness, supporting the child's growth through his or her â€Å"zone of proximal development. † Behaviorism Posted in Behaviorist Theories, Paradigms and Perspectives | 0 comments Summary: Behaviorism is a worldview that operates on a principle of â€Å"stimulus-response.†All behavior caused by external stimuli (operant conditioning). All behavior can be explained without the need to consider internal mental states or consciousness. Originators and important contributors: John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, B. F. Skinner, E. L. Thorndike (connectionism), Bandura, Tolman (moving toward cognitivism) Keywords: Classical conditioning (Pavlov), Operant conditioning (Skinner), Stimulus-response (S-R) Behaviorism Behaviorism is a worldview that assumes a learner is essentially passive, responding to environmental stimuli.The learner starts off as a clean slate (i. e.  tabula rasa) and behavior is shaped through positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement. Both positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement increase the probability that the antecedent behavior will happen again. In contrast, punishment (both positive and negative) decreases the likelihood that the antecedent behavior will happen again. Positive indicates the application of a stimulus; N egative indicates the withholding of a stimulus. Learning is therefore defined as a change in behavior in the learner. Lots of (early) behaviorist work was done with animals (e. g. Pavlov’s dogs) and generalized to humans.

Organic vs Non-Organic Essay

I. Introduction: Thesis Statement: People should consume organic foods because they have More nutritious, No pesticides are used on them, No hormones or antibiotics are used in their production A. Major Proposition or Premise (before because): People should consume organic foods B. 1st Minor Proposition or Premise (after because): More nutritious. C. 2nd Minor Proposition or Premise (after because): No pesticides are used on them. D. 3rd Minor Proposition or Premise (after because): No hormones or antibiotics are used in their production. II. A. 1st Minor Proposition or Premise (after because): More nutritious B. Evidence: Expert Testimony: Lady Eve Balfour Philosophical Theory: Jeffrey Stephen Wicken Historical Examples: N/A Statistics: ( journeytoforever. org/farm_library/worthington-organic. pdf) Logic: The producers of non-organic food argue that the organic label is a marketing tool. It is not a statement about food safety. Nor is â€Å"organic† a value judgment about nutrition or quality. Organic is how it is produced. Just because something is labeled organic does not mean it is superior, safer, or more healthy than conventional foods. All foods in this country must meet the same high standards of safety regardless of their classification C. Opposition of 1st Minor Proposition/Premise: There is no evidence whatsoever that a diet high in or exclusively of organic foods is any healthier for you than a diet of conventional foods, no clear or consistent difference could be found in the nutritional value D. Evidence: Expert Testimony: Martin Hickman Philosophical Theory: Dan Glickman 2004 Historical Examples: N/A Statistics: (http://www. independent. co. uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/organic-food-no-healthier-than-conventional-1764448. html) Logic: There is plenty of evidence however that a diverse diet, high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and fish is healthy E. Refutation(Against) of Opposition Premise: A considerable amount of research has been conducted on the nutrient content of organic vs. conventional foods over the last century III. A. 2nd Minor Proposition or Premise (after because): No pesticides are used on them. B. Evidence: Expert Testimony: Sir (Dr. ) John Krebs. Philosophical Theory: Ned Goth Historical Examples: N/A Statistics: http://www. independent.co. uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/organic-food-no-healthier-than-conventional-1764448. html Logic: While synthetic pesticides are prohibited in organic farming, some ‘natural’ pesticides may still be used, and they are not necessarily less worrisome just because they’re natural. C. Opposition of 2nd Minor Proposition/Premise: Organic farmers claim to use a combination of techniques to avoid having to â€Å"resort† to using pesticides D. Evidence: Expert Testimony: Sir (Dr. ) John Krebs Philosophical Theory: Ned Goth Historical Examples: N/A Statistics: http://ourworld. unu.edu/en/apples-have-feelings-too/ Logic: Organic pesticides pose exactly the same sort of environmental and health risks as do non-organic pesticides and often pose more risks than synthetics. E. Refutation(Against) of Opposition Premise: The difference between organic and synthetic pesticides is not their toxicity to pests, people or the environment, but rather their origin IV. A. 3rd Minor Proposition or Premise (after because): No hormones or antibiotics are used in their production B. Evidence: Expert Testimony: Sir (Dr. ) John Krebs Philosophical Theory: Ned Goth Historical Examples :N/A. Statistics: (http://www. independent. co. uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/organic-food) Logic: All scientists said it was safe and none of the studies showed the hormone to appear in or alter the milk or meat C. Opposition of 3rd Minor Proposition/Premise: Organic milk and non-organic milk are essentially identical D. Evidence: Expert Testimony: Sir (Dr. ) John Krebs Philosophical Theory: Robert V. Tauxe, M. D Historical Examples: N/A Statistics: ABC News 20/20, How good is organic food? , February 20,2000 Logic: Hormones appear naturally in all milk, eggs and soy products F. Refutation(Against) of Opposition Premise: Conventional milk in the US is 100% free of artificial hormones and 99. 999% free of antibiotics. V. Conclusion: So is organic food better for you? Well if you consider that decreasing your toxin burden and increasing your intake of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants can have a significant impact on health, then it certainly is. Of course, you have to be able to afford the increase in price, but it might be worth cutting out fast foods and spending your money more wisely on home-made meals.