Juan Sebastian Munoz

Compare/ Contrast essay

The American dream has always proclaim that “ That all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness”. This paradoxical and contradictory statement has not always
been true for every person that call America their home, and Americans can be unaware
of the irony that this claim introduces. In the following essay we will be comparing and
contrasting this claim, that has always been a important part of the dream with the
reality that many minorities endure in the United States.

There has always been an inherit sense of expansive sense of possibility inside the
American dream, the promise of open fertile space, an infinite number of new starts
were conceivable in the past, today the nation is no longer young and never will be
again, it’s open space is mostly taken, it’s wanted natural resources almost empty.
Americans were once innocent enough to dream that the nation could not only control
its own destiny but that the rest of the world would emulate its example of democracy
and capitalism, only once threated by the concept of communist in the Soviet Union,
today it’s clear that, after the Vietnam war, not only superpower nations could
undermined American supremacy but also less that superpower such Vietnam and Iraq
can affect American life in ways that they cannot be foreseen.

As for global conversion to democracy and capitalism American style, the most prudent
thing to say is that many chapters in that story remain to be written in the end of the
tale is problematic as it is unknown. The proposition that Jefferson created lives on,
because it was destined to be inspiring as it was ambiguous, as troublesome as
American practices depicted as ironic.
These dynamics have worked on and through the American dream in unpredictable
ways. Some sociologist believed that the problem of the 20thcentury is the problem of
the color line, that conviction that a racial barrier separates white and blacks on
American ground. Some activist have interpreted Jefferson’s claim as that quality and
especially equality is an American birth right.

A good example are the activities of black leader at the end of the 19 century Booker T.
Washington. In the personal level his story is a success story much like Benjamin
Franklin’s. Since 1881 Booker labored for 34 years to build a school with an emphasis on
industrial training for Africa American, where they will be taught labor skills plus basic
knowledge of hygiene and home economics, such instruction would enable them to
obtain food and housing, this will help black people to speed up their entrance in
American mainstream life.
During this era, Washington became the first African-American leader in the times after
the emancipation. After the civil war Washigton appeared to be voice of reason with his
plans for education for blacks. As Washigton put it in his autobiography, this was the
best way to help his race.
The 14th amendment stress that each state must provide equal protection under the law
to all people within its jurisdiction, this clause was the result of the dismantling of racial
segregation and reject unnecessary discrimination, it was not intended to abolish social
inequality. The debate about how law would treat the two races rise during the
Louisiana trial Plessy versus Ferguson in 1896, this two man where trial for refusing to
leave the passenger car designate for whites. The supreme court base in the 14 th
amendment enforce the political equality of black and white, stating that the
“ Constitution is colorblind”.
This statement has not held true today, many sociologist ask why it is that the United
States sends people to prison at rates four times greater than any other country in
particular they explore why no country no even South Africa incarcerates more black
means than the United states. This is one of many factors that leads some
contemporary social scientists to say that in spite of the fact there are presently over 14
millions of them, African-Americans males nevertheless have the risk of becoming
endangered species.
Langston Hughes wrote in 1938 “America was never America to me and yet I swear that
America will be it’s dream” Hughes through his verses tolds his white reads how
discouraging it was for blacks to live haunted by the ghost of an untrue dream. Hughes
did not forgets his bow when he was ask what happens to a dream deferred, his
response full with anger, frustration, impatience and yet hopeful all at once, he answer
that a dream deferred might well explode. Hughes’s answer became a premonition, by
midcentury, the struggle for racial equality heated up erupting violently across America.
Some of the reasons then and now is an American dream deferred will keep the have-
nots tantalized with hope, still seeking what they do not possess, if all men and women
are created equal and granted certain unalienable rights by God including those to life
liberty an the pursuit of happiness such results are bound to cause confusion, the
confusion nurture over tears, between despair, this rage is more than sufficient to
unleash violence.

The complexity increases with skin color and races, American ground is populate by
Asians and Latinos of diverse traditions, Arabas and Jews of various background as well
as by the multiple native American cultures that were here long before the ethnically
different Europeans and Africans arrived, the varieties of heritage and lifestyle in
America have of course often been celebrated in the Unites States.
Herman Melville the author of Moby Dick may be correct when in another of his novels
called Redburn proclaimed “ There is something in the contemplation of the mode in
which America has been settled that in a noble breast should forever extinguish the
prejudices of national dislike settled by the people of all nations, all nations claim her for
their own, you cannot spill a drop of American Blood without spilling the blood of the
whole world” “we are not a narrow tribe, no: our blood is as the flood of the Amazon
made up of thousands noble currents all pouring into one. We are not a nation, so much
as a world” nevertheless the diversity of which Melville spoke often makes living
together harder for Americans not easier, one reason is that these domestic
relationships which are never very far from the color line, have international
implications. Americans see each other no to mention the county as a whole, in foreign
affairs American foreign policy is influenced by ethnic coalitions and difficulties within
the nation’s borders. The factors noted would be more than enough to guarantee that
the domestic peace promised by the American Constitution is much more to be wished
for that taken for granted. American are divided not only by color and race, ethnicity
and culture but also by that most fundamental natural difference of all, the one
between male and female, here too there are varied difficulties and coalitions all of
them affected by the particularities of their participants. If America is melting pot lately
the resulting stew bubbles in a pressure cooker.
Sources:

- Dickenson, Emily. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickenson. Frost, Robert. The Poetry of
Robert Frost.
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Revisions. New York: Paragon House, 1988. This collection contains selections from
many of the texts and authors referred in the lecture series.
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Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass.
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in the Great Depression. Kerber, Linda K. and Jane Sherron DeHart. Women's America.
Long, Elizabeth. The American Dream and the Popular Novel.
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