Trans Racial Adoption Essay Example for Free

Trans Racial Adoption Essay In a well-publicized 1989 case, a black boy named Reecie West was raised from the age of two months by Dale and Jan May, a white foster couple in Cincinnati, Ohio. When Reecie was freed for adoption, the Mays applied to adopt him. However, the social service department decided to search the country for a black family instead. At the last moment, the Mays application was denied. The boy, age two and a half, was placed with a black couple in another state. Eight weeks later the boy was dead, the victim of what one report called horrific physical abuse at the hands of his new adoptive parents. With this horrific revelation, there shall be a critical look at trans-racial adoption and how it has affected thousands of children worldwide. For the purpose of this essay however, I shall argue in support of trans-racial adoption.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   For the purpose of this essay however, adoption is defined as a process by which children are brought together with adults who are not their biological parents to form a family. Practiced informally throughout human history, adoption in the United States has evolved into a formalized legal procedure; its primary statutory purpose is to protect the welfare of children in cases where the birth parents are gone or unable to care for their offspring. Through adoption, the legal ties to a child’s birth parents are severed. Adoptees (adopted persons) are seen in the eyes of the law as permanent members of the adoptive family with all the legal rights and privileges of biological children.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In trans-racial adoptions however, children are placed with an adoptive family of another race. These adoptions may be through public and private agencies or be independent, but most trans-racial adoptions take place through the public child welfare system. In United States, The civil rights movement of the 1960s led to an increase in trans-racial adoptions involving black children and white parents. In a statistical survey conducted in 1998, an estimated 15 percent of the 36,000 adoptions of foster children were trans-racial or trans-cultural adoptions.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   It quite unfortunate that despite the various merits of trans-racial adoptions there has been hot debates on its prohibition. Ironically, however, polls show that a large majority of both black and white Americans support trans-racial adoptions. A 1991 survey of 975 adults conducted by CBS, for instance, found that 70 percent of whites favored them, along with 71 percent of blacks.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Flowing form the above, a widespread public support in United States helped persuade Congress in 1994 to pass the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act, which prohibits using race, culture, or ethnic identity to block or delay trans-racial foster-care placements and adoptions. In fact, the federal act was intended to shorten the length of time children spend in foster homes and orphanages by facilitating trans-racial adoptions. It is rather sad that despite the enactment of this law, today, children wait an average of two-and-a-half years to be adopted. Thousands of them can still be found in foster homes across the States. Therefore, there is no continuing need of using race as a criterion for adopting a parentless child, especially if it would leave the child without a family. Love, after all, is color-blind. Again, the case for interracial adoption has been strengthened in recent years, too, by studies of black children who were adopted by white families and have reached adulthood now. Not every study has reached exactly the same conclusion, but nearly all agree that trans-racially adopted children become happy and content adults. According to one study, about half of minority children adopted by whites say that race is an unimportant factor in their lives. The fact remains that trans-racial adoption is the best option because it will respond to the overrepresentation of minority children in the child welfare system. Also, trans-racial adoption will help in reducing the number of parentless children at various foster homes in and outside the Unites States. Without trans-racial adoption, activists argue, too many black children will never be placed with a family. Leaving African American kids in foster care rather than allowing them to be adopted by loving parents, says one observer inflicts very serious harm on children. The former American first lady and the present Presidential aspirant, Senator Hillary Clinton, once agree with trans-racial adoption in a newspaper column. Skin color, she writes, should not outweigh the more important gift of love that adoptive parents want to offer. In conclusion, with all the views expressed above about trans-racial adoption, it can then be safely concluded that it is the best option for children who needs to belong to a loving and caring family. Children need to be loved and cared for and prohibition of trans-racial adoption will not in anyway help matters. God creates and loves all, so we should reciprocate this agape love by making sure that parentless children do not live a substantial portion of their lives in foster homes. WORKS CITED Brodzinsky, D. M., and M. D. Schechter, Eds. The Psychology of Adoption. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. L. An Open Adoption. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1990. Lancaster, K. Keys to Adopting a Child. Hauppauge, NY: Barrens Educational Series, 1994. Melina, L. R. Making Sense of Adoption. New York: Harper Row, 1989. National Committee for Adoption (NCFA). 1989 Adoption Washington, DC: National Committee for Adoption, 1989. Tatara, T. Characteristics of Children in Substitute and Adoptive Care: A Statistical Summary of the VCIS National Child Welfare Base. Washington, DC: American Public Welfare Association, 1992.

Aristophanes Assemlywomen and Lysistrata Essay -- Athenian Athens Gen

Aristophanes' Assemlywomen and Lysistrata Typically in Athenian society, women took care of the things in the household while men, although still retaining the final say over matters of the household, focused most of their attention on the world outside the home. In the plays Assemblywomen and Lysistrata, Aristophanes explores roles of men and women in society, specifically what would happen if women were to take on the roles of men. Looking at these two plays about Athenian society as metaphors for marital life, it shows that men and women were incapable of having balanced power in their relationships. In both of these plays, the men were unable to keep their own sense of power when the women took over politics, and they eventually moved into the submissive role of women. In Lysistrata, the women used their seduction to gain power. Similarly, in Assemblywomen, the women came into power through deception and clever planning. This paper explores why women rarely stepped up to take power; how they would gain power when they would step up to claim it; and how the men would respond once confronted with a woman in power. This all serves to show that in Athens, a marriage of man and woman could not exist with mutuality of power – rather, one (typically the man) would dominate, while the other (typically the woman) took the submissive role. Throughout both Lysistrata and Assemblywomen, both the men and women were convinced, to varying degrees, that the women were incapable of handling any kind of authority or challenging task. In fact, only the dominant, leader women (Lysistrata and Praxagora) of the two plays had enough confidence to handle a position of power. These women have been brought up i... ...brought this power imbalance to the open, however, by exploring what would happen if women took the initiative to claim the dominant rold in society. The women, when able to successfully overcome the men and take power in the city, left the men with no choice but to either fight to regain the power, as they attempted to do in Lysistrata, or succumb to the women’s plans, as they did in both Assemblywomen and, eventually, Lysistrata. In relinquishing their power to women, the men forfeited their masculinity and became stereotypically feminine while the women also forfeited their gender norms to stay in power. Athenian unions, therefore, subsisted on a constant inequality of power kept carefully balanced by each partner staying in their designated role in the marriage – the husband the strong moneymaker living outside of the house, the wife the submissive homemaker.

“A Separate Peace” by John Knowles Essay

One of the major themes in A Separate Peace is the coming of age. The theme of maturity can be viewed as a growing realization of the war in the school (in which the students realize that they have to enlist into the war â€Å"as men†), or the private and interior crisis one goes through (such as Gene discovering his identity as the novel progresses). The training and the sudden labors that the Devon students engage in attempt to prepare the boys for their future at the war; this can be seen as the external view of maturity in the novel, whereas the â€Å"internal† view of maturity can be seen in Gene’s thoughts as he searches for his personal identity. Throughout the novel, both Gene and Finny experience important yet damaging issues in their life where they realize the need to face the reality of it or become lost forever. As Gene discovers in the end, true identity can only be reached through maturity. Gene and the students of Devon experience a sense of maturity through the sudden change in their once peaceful and war-shunning environment of the summer. In the beginning of the novel, we can see that Devon is like a â€Å"Garden of Eden†; it resembles a paradise in the center of all the wars and deaths that are happening outside Devon’s barriers. Devon is seen as a milieu within a larger milieu (the rest of America at war). It seems that the students have lived their summer in a peaceful bubble of â€Å"Eden† in contrast with the background of World War II in the rest of the world. The summer of 1942 at Devon can be symbolized as the time of freedom and the exposure of youth; this is a moment in the novel where the students can get away with breaking rules and skipping classes. Therefore, the carefree summer of 1942 represents a time of paradise, where everyone is at peace and simply enjoying life at its fullest. However, Finny’s symbolic â€Å"fall† seems to have brought an end to this delight at Devon and brings in the winter session, where there is labour, orders, discipline, darkness, and despair. This is the moment when the teachers of Devon realize that the students are just on their way of serving the army. The students begin to participate in drills and trips to the railroad and orchard to help out in every way they can. In contrast to the summer of Devon, the winter represents the burdens of maturity and adulthood, and a  time where preparation of the war replaces the joyful atmosphere that was present in the summer. The boys of Devon suddenly feel that they must be responsible and â€Å"established† in order to face whatever their future brings them in the war. They all realize that they must smarten up and become men, because it is time to face the reality of what is going on behind Devon’s peaceful barriers. The phrase â€Å"Innocence must be killed to give birth to experience† says a lot about this time in the novel. Though the teachers had given the students more freedom during the summer and allowed several rule-breakings to take place, they understand that in order for the students to be ready and prepared for the coming conflicts in the army they must stop acting like children and sacrifice their state of immaturity to gain knowledge as adults. They understand that children cannot survive in wars, but men can. Later, the students realize that they must enlist themselves to serve for the army within a short period of time. Most of them become excited about becoming a solider for army, but then the novel takes an ironic twist with the students’ beliefs of the war because they do not yet know the real dangers and certainties of the outside of the barriers of Devon (regarding the world war). An example of such â€Å"blind thinking† was Leper becoming the first to join the war, thinking that he will gain more time in the forest afterwards, but returns devastated and emotionally shattered. His confrontation with Gene proves that there is a war out there and it is horrible as well. Gene, after realizing that he may also suffer from the same mental state as Leper if he enlisted, runs away screaming, â€Å"Shut up; it has nothing to do with me so shut up!†. Here we can see that Gene realizes some truth about the war, and no matter how much he tries to deny the horrible details and evidences that Leper brings back from the outside of Devon he gains new insight and wisdom. It is in this sense as well that Gene matures through the pressures of the war in the background, and that he cannot run from it because it is reality and he has to face it when it is his turn to enlist. The presence of the war, in a sense, also serves as a background for the  emotional development of the students at Devon; the world war actually triggers the buried emotions of the boys. Gene, Finny, and Brinker (for example) become competitive in their own ways; Gene compares his academic standards with Finny’s natural talents for sports, Finny shows a â€Å"win-win† competitive nature towards Gene in the games that they have played together (though he is out of the â€Å"war† mentally)), and Brinker feels insecure about his popularity due to Finny. Each character feels unconfident and is therefore â€Å"at war† with himself. In this novel, the ability to fix these inner conflicts seems to sadly result in either death (like Finny), or insanity (like Leper). For Finny, since he is unable to face certain feelings, he ends up becoming upset at the mock trial and dies in the second accident. Leper, on the other hand, believed that by enlisting first would b ring him out from his loneliness, yet returns from the war in a far worse shape. Gene, however, goes through a more painful process by remaining in Devon to fight for salvation within himself. Because the view of maturity in an emotional development is mostly seen in Gene (as narrator, we could see his thought-process as the novel progresses), I will use his private conflicts as an example to further support my thesis. In the beginning of the book, Gene develops a close relationship with Finny, his roommate. However, Gene begins to feel a bit envious of Finny, and sees his way of thinking as the truth. This then lead to an inner conflict in Gene, in which he begins to compare himself with Finny in a â€Å"Win-Lose† way of thinking. As his thinking of â€Å"competition† continues, Gene begins to see certain â€Å"flaws† within himself that leads to his insecurity, though these â€Å"missing traits† are not really flaws. He does tend to â€Å"hold himself back† several times by repeatedly telling himself how lucky he is to have Finny as a best friend, but this excuse soon shatters because he remains selfish. This selfishness of him reveals itself in chapter three, where Finny practically saves Gene from falling, but Gene tries to protect his beliefs of â€Å"Finny being the enemy† by telling himself that it was Finny’s fault for getting him into the me ss in the first place. At the same time, Gene’s admiration for Finny’s personality prevents him from refusing to go out with  Finny; it is in this state that Gene is actually a confused young man, who does not know the true value of friendship, and cannot correct the jealousy that he feels for Finny. The jealousy continues to grow, and soon enough Gene jounces the limb in chapter five, resulting in Finny’s fall. As I have said before, Gene is then forced to review what he has done to Finny and take a good look at himself; his mind, feeling extremely guilty for his actions, pressures him so much about the accident that he is forced to grow up. We see the final stage of maturity in Gene when he realizes near the end of the novel that he needs to become a grown-up and confront his personal war face-to-face once and for all; he confesses to Finny about his part in the accident, and finally gains Finny’s forgiveness and a sense of salvation. It was in this confession that Gene is f orced to see his stupidity and selfishness behind some of his actions. His act of courage to go to Finny and confess is evidence that he has finally grown. The conflict that he feels inside (regarding his relationship with Finny) becomes the source of his final emotional development; because of the â€Å"accident† the he had committed against Finny’s fall, Gene is forced to examine his own feelings over and over again throughout the novel. This repeated painful examination of his feelings and guilt results in growth; by really looking in himself, Gene realizes that he has to be responsible for his actions. It is when Gene finally reaches his peak of maturity that he begins to see his true identity in the end of the novel. Gene has emerged from a sort of shyness into a more confident attitude; he was influenced by Finny to learn about people, events, and life in a way that he had never before. In short, Gene needed Finny in order to realize himself. And sadly, Finny’s death leads to the eulogy that Gene makes in the last chapter, where he remembers the lessons that he was taught during his personal war at Devon. The theme of maturity in A Separate Peace can be reflected from the pressures that Gene (and the others students) endures during the drills, labors, and strict rules at Devon; this can be categorized as the â€Å"external† features of the theme, as well as the background of the novel. However, the theme of coming to age can also be seen in Gene’s heart, as he participates in an emotional struggle within himself prior to Finny’s character. We can see that Gene becomes jealous and envious of Finny, but then there seems to be a development in his character as he slowly begins to realize the truth. In a sense, Gene reaches maturity and becomes an adult after Finny dies, as he realizes that his own enemy was not Finny but his ignorant heart. Both the external and internal features of maturity in this novel gives meaning to the phrase, â€Å"Innocence must be killed to give birth to experience†; the students had to leave their peaceful state in the summer of 1942 and began to get used to the rigors of war and labor to fully understand the realities of war; at the same time, if Finny had not suffered and eventually died in the end, Gene would not have reflected on himself and grow from his experiences in the past. As Gene discovered in the end, true identity can only be reached through a state of maturity. â€Å"A Separate Peace† By John Knowles Essay In â€Å"A Separate Peace† by John Knowles, it is evident that Finny and Leper undergo the most traumatic experiences from the Class of 1943. Through these experiences, both characters lose much of their innocence and naivety. Finny, upon learning of the existence of the war and Gene’s moment of hatred, learns to accept realities and perceive the world as it is, not as the perfect childlike image he wants it to be. However, when Leper enlists in the army, he quickly begins to have hallucinations because the reality is too much for him to handle. Nevertheless, he eventually overcomes his insanity and seems to be fairly mentally stable by the end of the novel. Although Finny and Leper’s traumas are the source of a major loss of purity and childhood, they are also the cause of post-tramautic growth and a necessary increase in maturity. Finny goes through several perception-changing events during the course of the novel, but the event that cements his departure from childhood is the acceptance that Gene deliberately shook Finny off the tree. This shock was caused by his own inability to accept the truth in the first place. Despite the ease of denying unwanted information and living in a dream world, it is mentally unhealthy for Finny because of the shock caused upon finally believing the truth. Immediately after Gene’s confession of jouncing the limb, Gene remarks that Finny looked â€Å"older than I had ever seen him† (62). Finny, however, does not yet comprehend feelings of jealousy and betrayal, as he has hardly had any himself and finds it difficult to think of another’s point of view; the information registers on his face, but before he has time to process it and mature he rejects the idea entirely. Gene states â€Å"it occurred to me that this could be an even deeper injury than what I ha d done before† (62). The reality of adult themes such as jealousy, betrayal, and hate is what hurts Finny most, not the crippling injury itself. Another reality that takes away from Finny’s nescience is the war (when he finally believes in its existence). The most dramatic and stunning war in recent history, World War II had a huge impact on millions of lives worldwide. Yet Phineas refused to believe in the war, and instead created a fantasy in which he was the one of the only people who knew that it was all a hoax. When Gene, in disbelief from Finny’s opinion, questions Finny on why he is the only person who is aware of the â€Å"stuffed shirts'† (107) plot to  suppress happiness, Finny emotionally bursts out it is because he has â€Å"suffered† (108). Apparently, Finny has visualized this hoax to shield himself from the disadvantages of his disability, such as enlisting. Nevertheless, Finny quickly accepts the truth of the war after seeing Leper in a mentally disturbed state of mind. The image of what the war did to someone who used to be close to him shook him out of his dream world and spurred his emotional growth. When Finny, at the end of the novel, learned to accept the realities and avoid using denial to cope with shock, he lost the last of his childhood innocence. Leper is easily one of the most naive and innocent characters during the Summer Session. His good-naturedness and passive fascination with nature is such an ideal image of innocence that it seems almost depressing to see him in the traumatized state of mind after enlisting. Even while everyone is volunteering to shovel snow to aid the war effort and discussing their plans for which division to enlist in, Leper is only concerned with the beauty of nature and skis to a beaver dam to watch the beavers develop and build their dam. He is moved to join the army not for vain images of glory and glamor like the other students, but rather for the beauty of skiing down a mountain. Obviously, he soon finds that the army is too much for him, and while absent from the ongoings at Devon he loses every shred of innocence and guilelessness that previously surrounded his character. When Gene meets him, his psyche is obviously changed to such a point that he has hallucinations and other symptoms of sc hizophrenia, caused by his rapid ascension into adult matters. He does not accept reality nearly as well as Finny does because his character was far more innocuous at the start of the novel. So many of his images of the world are shattered that it can be seen that he feels like he has little familiarity to hold onto. He grasps to every gleam of regularity and unchangeable function, which explains his preference for spending time in the dining room of his house simply because he knows that three daily meals will be served there on a consistent basis. However, his time at home seems to have given him time to cope with the images of adulthood. Upon his return to Devon, he seems mentally well and a much more decisive authority than ever before. He accurately and forcefully convicts Gene of jouncing the limb in â€Å"his new, confident†¦ voice† (166).  Gene describes Leper during the trial as â€Å"all energy† (165). Evidently, Leper has dealt with the loss of innocence caused by his abrupt initiation into adulthood and has becom e a more confident, self-assured person in spite of it. Knowles makes it apparent throughout A Separate Peace that while the loss of innocence may often seem to be a sad or tragic event, it is necessary to pave the way for maturation and a transition into adulthood. Had Finny never accepted the truth of the tragedy that occurred to him, he would have never matured beyond his carefree summer days. And had Leper kept living in his own world of vivid imaginations, he would have never developed into the sanguine individual he becomes at the end of the novel. While the loss of innocence is partly a lugubrious experience, John Knowles portrays it as a necessity – a part of maturation and growth that leads to adulthood and self-fulfillment.

Author Profile Maya Angelou - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 3 Words: 987 Downloads: 5 Date added: 2019/10/30 Category People Essay Level High school Tags: Maya Angelou Essay Did you like this example? Author Profile: Maya Angelou   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Dr. Maya Angelou, award winning author, poet, actress, director, dancer, educator, and activist was birthed with the name Marguerite Johnson on April 4th, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is one of her most famous pieces of work that describes her life in her younger years. At a young age, her parents separated which resulted in her and her older brother being sent to live with her grandmother in Stamps, Arkansas.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   At the age of seven, Angelou was sexually molested by her mothers boyfriend at the time. After gaining the courage to speak up about what her mothers boyfriend had did to her, Angelous uncles killed him out of vengeance. Coping with such a horrific and traumatic experience, the young seven-year-old, went into a five-year period of complete silence.   During this prolonged mute, she developed a love for literature. Angelou finally began to speak again at the age of twelve with the help of a someone dear to her by the name of Mrs. Flowers. Angelou went on to write a childrens book Mrs. Flowers: A Moment of Friendship. In this book, Angelou shares how much of an impact Mrs. Flowers had on her from exposing her to her new profound love of spoken word and written poetry and the importance of being educated. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Author Profile: Maya Angelou" essay for you Create order   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   After while in high school, Angelou accepted a scholarship to California Labor School in San Francisco where she studied dance and acting. At the age of seventeen, she gave birth to her son, Guy Johnson, whos father was from a short-lived high school relationship. In order to support herself and her new born son, she worked as a street car conductor becoming the first African American and first female to hold this position. In her third autobiography, Singin and Swingin and Gettin Merry like Christmas, Angelou shares how she worked several different jobs to make ends meet for the family of two. In 1950, she married a Greek sailor by the name of Tosh Angelos. After a few years, the two divorced. Shortly after, she was a featured in the Purple Onion cabaret as a singer who gained the attention of many scouts. As her career began to take shape, she began re-branding herself. Using a childhood nickname and part of her ex husbands last name, she began to refer to herself as Maya Angelou. Angelou earned a role in the Porgy and Bess production tour, and Calypso Heat Wave. She later released her first album, Miss Calypso. Along with her long resume of accolades, Angelou earned a Tony Award nomination, and an Emmy Award nomination. She joined the Harlem Writers Guild which is where she met writer James Baldwin. She was In the 1960s Angelou moved abroad to work as a freelance writer and editor first living in Egypt, and then Ghana. After returning to the United States in 1964, she published her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings which was a nationwide success and her most famous work. Out of her 7 published autobiographies, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings   was her bestselling piece but was also the one of the most publicly controversial.   Upon its release, the autobiography was banned from many schools because of its topics of race, violence, and sex. Maya Angelou took fifteen years to write the A Song Flung up to Heaven to one of her last autobiographies. When asked why it took so long to be completed and published, she told interviewers that she didnt know how to account for four years of hurt to not only her but the entire African American community and yet remain encouraging. In this volume, she covers the assassination of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., the Watts riot, and her divorce. While writing her volumes of autobiographies, Maya Angelou also had a career in film and author of childrens books. She became the first African American woman to produce a screenplay. In 1977, she was an Emmy nominee for her role in Roots. Poetry used in the 1993 film Poetic Justice was written by Angelou, she also starred in the film in the role of Aunt June. In 1993 and 1995, she also starred in the films There Are No Children Here and How to Make an American Quilt. In between film and writing her autobiographies, Angelou, released a number of poems. Her most popular were The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou and Phenomenal Woman. Maya Angelou is ranked among the literary greats of the world.   I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings which was her first autobiography published in 1970. After years of being banned from schools around the country, later became paramount to the discussion of African American literature. It tells her life story, bring controversial topics to the surface, as well as exposes readers to great writing examples. Her two poems Still I Rise and Phenomenal Woman are of favorites for many, especially women. They are both very relatable poems. Still I Rise encourages readers to not allow the stress of the world to consume you and break you down but continue to rise and confidently defeat whatever obstacle may come. Phenomenal Woman is a poem about self-esteem. It empowers women to be confident and self-loving regardless to who else may not your value. All of which are relevant to contemporary society and arguable more relevant than ever.   There is an alarming increasing rate of young women who are seeking cosmetic surgery to change their physical appearance. All 3 pieces reflect on this matter; from a persons upbringing and childhood experiences, to their mental and spiritual health. Dr. Maya Angelou has achieved more in than many could ever dream of. Being able to juggle the role as an African American single mother, author, actress, director, singer, poet, civil rights activist, writer, dancer, editor, essayist and playwright, all in one lifetime is unfathomable to many and a lifetime inspiration to all.