Caucus+D-Vision

Who Is a Person in America? Debate--Caucus Table

Gigi Furlong

An efficient ideal American society must consist of meritocracy. Meritocracy itself is not a form of government, but rather an ideology. In government applications, individuals appointed to a meritocracy are judged based upon certain merits which could range from intelligence to morality to general aptitude to specific knowledge. Meritocracy is viewed through the book, //Secret Life of Bees//, when Rosaleen and Lilly stay at a place in Tiburian while on their journey of running away, and **work** with the host family to **earn** their stay. Rosaleen and Lilly help the family with their business of bee keeping and learn many life lessons along the way but more importantly they followed the ideology of meritocracy by working for the family in order to be rewarded a place to stay. (Group 1 //Secret Life of Bees)// Meritocracy also plays a key role in the 1895 Atlanta Compromise presented by Booker T. Washington. "Booker T. thought instead, prove yourselves worthy of these rights and protections by making a difference and make a difference in the economic standard, meaning work harder and show your work ethic, and improve overall well being through appearance (Gigi F.)." Meritocracy is shown in his idea because of his belief of being patient and waiting to be rewarded equal rights and protections of the law through hard work and making a difference in the society (economic standard) by working hard. In other words, Booker T. emphasized the fact that if you **work hard**, you will be **rewarded / earn** things. In today's world, our society faces the problem of meritocracy through the college admitting system. Colleges are now accepting more people based on their race only to create diversity in the community. This goes against the ideology of meritocracy because colleges are not rewarding those students who **work hard** through out high school to **earn** a college education abut instead are **rewarding** those based on their race instead of their **hard work**and achievement. "That is, a white student with higher grades might have a 30 percent chance of admission, but a black or Latino student with a similar record would have a 58 percent chance of admission (Wash Park Prophet)." It is crucial to include meritocracy in our vision of American Society because it helps create an efficient society and makes all opportunities of becoming successful equal.

Group 1. "The Secret Life of Bees." Rev. of The Secret Life of bees. BuchholtzSidorAmericanStudies.wikispaces.com. Wikispaces, 2011. Web.26 Oct. 2011. .
 * Works Cited**

Furlong, Gigi. "Booker T. Washington - Compromise Speech 1895 ."buchholtzsidoramericanstudies.wikispaces.com. wikispaces.com, 2011.Web. 26 Oct. 2011. .

Oh-Wilike, Andrew. "Meritocracy v. Privilege In College Admissions." Wash Park Prophet. Blogger, June 2007. Web. 26 Oct. 2011..

Lucas Sencio

An ideal American society consists of meritocracy. Meritocracy is when someone is rewarded for his or her hard work and drive to succeed. In Five Flavors of Dumb, meritocracy is one of the main concepts in the book; a band won’t be wildly know unless “they work hard”-“start generating buzz, and get people listening” (John 102-103), and that shows that even if the band performs well enough to become somewhat known, their manager still needs to work hard to send demo tapes and tracks to different companies. Another example of meritocracy is the Cherokee Indian tribe. They were told by President Andrew Jackson that they needed to generate some type of profit to stay in their lands, and so they did by “writing their own newspaper, which generated 300 dollars of profit every year” (Lucas Sencio’s Timeline). Meritocracy is essential to a society “you have to work up to something to understand its true value” (Jack B.) and I totally agree with him, I think that if a person doesn’t work up to what he or she wants, he or she will never understand its true value.

Brian Moser

In order to have a working society, we need to have a social contract. This is where the people give up some rights (do whatever you want ie. murder, theft, rape, drunk driving) and work with the society, instead of subvert it (ie. domestic terrorists), so that the people are safe and society functions better. One way to ensure this is to have all of the cultures in society understand all of the others, and give up some aspects of their culture so they don' t infringe on others' rights; for example, the 1890 Massacre at Wounded Knee could have been prevented if the U.S. authorities understood the culture of Sioux indians, specifically the "Ghost dances... [which were performed to help the suffering of the indians, that] the U.S. saw as a threat" (John M). Also, the modern indians of today need to assimilate more into the culture of America, their unwillingness to do so, or their learned helplessness, causes many indians on reservations to suffer. In the book //The Absolutely True Diary Of A Part Time Indian//, the main character struggles to get away from reservation problems like poverty, alcoholism, and drug use, by attempting to become more like a mainstream American. The social contract can only work if citizens and immigrants are willing to abide by the laws set in place by the government; people like illegal immigrants do not respect the laws of our country and so they should not be allowed to be in our society. These illegal immigrants "are illegal for a reason, because they themselves cheat and choose not to go through the legalization process" (Givi G). If people do not give up certain rights and don't follow laws for the good of society, the society will not work.

TJ Kennedy

The rule of law is part of what makes up the ideal American society. The rule of law is when all people are equal under law and no one gets exception from to the law in any circumstances. The book //Warriors Don't Cry// is a good example of were rule under law could have changed the situation, if rule under law was enforced, all issues like the one in //Warriors Don't Cry// (//Warriors Don't Cry//, group 1) and other racist issues would never occur in a society with rule under law. A similar issue came around during WW2 when Japanese families were put into camps because Americans thought that they were “possible saboteurs or spies” (Mitch Nini's Timeline). Again rule of law could have prevented this and only true spies and saboteurs would have been imprisoned not the all Japanese Americas. The promotion of rule of law is one of the main goals of the United Nations in there worldly efforts today (UN.org). In all I think rule of law is for the best in a perfect society.


 * Work Cited**

Nini, Mitch. "Japanese-American Internment Executive Order 9066." //Wikispaces//. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2011. .

"United Nations and the Rule of Law." //United Nations//. United Nations, n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2011. .

"Warriors Don't Cry, group 1." //Wikispaces//. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2011. .

Garcia, Givi. "Undocumented Workers" //Buchholtz-Sidor American Studies Wiki.// 26 Oct. 2011.

Masters, John. "1890 Massacre at Wounded Knee" //Buchholtz-Sidor American Studies Wiki.// 26 Oct. 2011.

Alexie, Sherman. //The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.// Print.