Affirmative Action Essays (970 words) - Discrimination,

Affirmative Action The idea that different subcategories of humans exist, and that depending on one's point of view, some subcategories are inherently inferior to others, has been around since ancient times. This concept eventually gained the label of "race" in 1789, a "zoological term... generally defined as a subcategory of a species which inherits certain physical characteristics that distinguish it from other categories of that same species." (Tivnan 181). Although slavery has been by and large eliminated in virtually every part of the modern world, the concept used to rationalize its implementation, "racism", still plagues most modern cultures. Races that were once enslaved, or are minorities within their society, are often discriminated against in a variety of ways. This attitude can result in actions as severe as the Holocaust of World War II, or as minor as a dismissive glance from a salesman at an uptown department store. In America, an active war has been waged on discrimination since minorities and women rallied for equal rights in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's. In the last 35 years, the American government has made strides toward ending discrimination altogether, enacting social policies designed to give the downtrodden minorities a leg-up in a white-dominated society. One such policy, Affirmative Action, generally refers to programs that give preferential treatment to minority groups based on socioeconomic status and which try to correct past injustices inflicted upon said groups. This use of racial criteria to award opportunities in fields like education and employment has sparked major debates over reverse discrimination and moral obligation in today's America. Many claim that blacks in America have a "moral claim" to compensate them for the "paramount injustice" inflicted upon them, slavery (Tivnan 202). Although slavery ended nearly 200 years ago, racism was tolerated and even encouraged by the American government and was "virtually public policy" for most of the 20th century (Tivnan 202). Proponents of affirmative action believe society owes blacks for these past injustices. In addition to repaying blacks, these policies are "socially useful" to the whole of society, according to Ronald Dworkin in his book "Why Bakke Has No Case". By helping today's impoverished blacks, we can attempt to end the vicious cycle of poverty within just a few generations. Parents assisted by affirmative action will be better able to raise their children, who will be better educated and therefore receive better jobs without assistance. In some cases, the color of one's skin can be as important a criteria as their intelligence or experience. "If a black skin will, as a matter of regrettable fact, enable another doctor to do a different medical job better (e.g. minister to an urban ghetto population), then black skin ought to be taken as 'merit' as well" (Qtd. In Tivnan 206). The fact that black or white skin enables one to do a job better is not a measure of personal worth, just as people who can play basketball better because of their height are not inherently superior to those who cannot. Although affirmative Action does not solve all the problems, or resolve all the issues, you have to ask yourself: What would society be like without affirmative action? (Tivnan 211) Other's argue that "you cannot wipe out injustice with another injustice" (Tivnan195). Discriminating against whites is just as wrong as discriminating against blacks. After all, when a society wants to make things equal, it does not mean reversing the current situation and trampling the rights of different demographic instead. Whites and blacks shouldn't be on separate lists in the career world, just as they shouldn't have separate dining accommodations (Tivnan195). Another point raised is that affirmative action has been shown to hurt blacks more than it helps them (Tivnan 198). "Affirmative action implies inferiority" (Tivnan 198), and although it does give some blacks opportunities they would otherwise be without, it still propagates racism and racial tension in the workplace. "Preferential treatment...subjects blacks to a midnight of self-doubt, and so often transforms their advantage into a revolving door." (Tivnan 198). They would prefer a "level playing field", and hate that fellow employees think that they got to their position not through hard work, but through a government program, even though that may not be the case (Tivnan 200). Striving to attain "diversity", the goal of so many organizations, often hides the fact that many blacks aren't prepared for these opportunities. According to Shelby Steele's "The Content of Our Character", only 26% of black college students graduate from college within six years of admission. Although these figures are interesting, they are totally unrelated to the real victims

A Linguistic Look at Spanish

A Linguistic Look at Spanish Ask a linguist what kind of a language Spanish is, and the answer you get may depend on that linguists specialty. To some, Spanish is primarily a language derived from Latin. Another may tell you that Spanish is primarily an SVO language,  whatever that is, while others may refer to it as a fusional language. Spanish is classified as either an Indo-European or Romance language based on  its origins.Spanish is classified as a mostly SVO language because of its commonly used word order.Spanish is classified as somewhat inflectional because of the extensive use of word endings used to indicate attributes such as gender, number, and tense. All these classifications, and others, are important in linguistics, the study of language. As these examples show, linguists can classify languages according to their history, as well as according to the languages structure and according to how words are formed. Here are three common classifications that linguists use and how Spanish fits in with them: Genetic Classification of Spanish The genetic classification of languages is closely related to etymology, the study of the origins of words. Most of the worlds languages can be divided into about a dozen major families (depending on what is considered major) based on their origins. Spanish, like English, is part of the Indo-European family of languages, which includes the languages spoken by around half the worlds population. It includes most of the past and current languages of Europe (the Basque language being a major exception) as well as the traditional languages of Iran, Afghanistan, and the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. Some of the most common Indo-European languages today include French, German, Hindi, Bengali, Swedish, Russian, Italian, Persian, Kurdish and Serbo-Croatian. Among Indo-European languages, Spanish can be further classified as a Romance language, meaning that it is descended from Latin. Other major Romance languages include French, Portuguese, and Italian, all of which have strong similarities in vocabulary and grammar. Classification of Spanish by Word Order One common way of classifying languages is by the order of the basic sentence components, namely the subject, object, and verb. In this regard, Spanish can be thought of as a flexible subject-verb-object or SVO language, as is English. A simple sentence will typically follow that order, as in this example: Juanita lee el libro, where Juanita is the subject, lee (reads) is the verb and el libro (the book) is the object of the verb. It should be noted, however, that this structure is far from the only one possible, so Spanish cant be thought of as a strict SVO language. In Spanish, it is often possible to leave out the subject entirely if it can be understood from the context, and it also is common to change the word order to emphasize a different part of the sentence. Also, when pronouns are used as objects, the SOV order (subject-object-verb) is the norm in Spanish: Juanita lo lee. (Juanita reads it.) Classification of Spanish by Word Formation In terms of how words are formed, languages can be classified in at least three ways: As isolating or analytical, meaning  that words or word roots dont change based on how they are used in a sentence, and that the relationship of words to each other are conveyed primarily by the use of word order or by words known as particles to indicate the relationship among them.As inflectional or fusional, meaning that the forms of the words themselves change to indicate how they relate to the other words in a sentence.As  agglutinating or agglutinative, meaning that words are frequently formed by combining various combinations of morphemes, wordlike units with distinct meanings. Spanish is generally viewed as a somewhat inflectional language, although all three typologies exist to some extent. English is more isolating than Spanish, although English too has inflectional aspects. In Spanish, verbs are nearly always inflected, a process known as conjugation. In particular, each verb has a root (such as habl-)  to which endings are attached to indicate who is performing the action and the time period in which it occurs. Thus, hablà © and hablaron both have the same root, with the endings used to provide more information. By themselves, the verb endings have no meaning. Spanish also uses inflection for adjectives to indicate number and gender. As an example of the isolating aspect of Spanish, most nouns are inflected only to indicate whether they are plural or singular. In contrast, in some languages, such as Russian, a noun can be inflected to indicate, for example, that it is a direct object rather than a subject. Even names of people can be inflected. In Spanish, however, word order and prepositions are typically used to indicate the function of a noun in a sentence. In a sentence such as Pedro ama a Adriana (Pedro loves Adriana), the preposition a is used to indicate which person is the subject and which is the object. (In the English sentence, word order is used to inidicate who loves whom.) An example of an agglutinative aspect of Spanish (and of English) can be seen in its use of various prefixes and suffixes. For example, the difference between hacer (to do) and deshacer (to undo) is in its use of the morpheme (a unit of meaning) des-.

At least four general characteristics of materials handling contribute Essay

At least four general characteristics of materials handling contribute to its intrinsic hazard potential. Name and explain four such characteristics - Essay Example In general lack of operational control may increase the scope of intrinsic hazards as it may cause either cause damage either to the operator, the fellow workers or the environment in varied combinations and extremities. Non-Identification of Hazardous Materials: The proper identification and description of the extent of the risk posed by a hazardous material must be well aware to the person handling it. Any lacuna in this would proportionally increase the intrinsic hazard potential of the material. Handling procedures including details on the hazard levels and risks posed must be studied in detail before handling the material Continued exposure of Hazardous materials: If hazardous materials with are not isolated and demarcated, it may lead to uncontrolled exposure of the same to the people handling it which would contribute to the increase of its potential risk. Thus such materials must be isolated and made to be handled by trained persons Personal Safety Equipments: The proper use of Personal Safety Equipments like gloves, goggles, safety shoes, work coat, sunscreen is very important to avert the risk posed by hazardous materials. Improper use of these or not using these while handling a hazardous material increases the intrinsic hazard potential of the