Poems, Random Thoughts and Thoughtfulness

By Tony Khalil Rodgers

Hello people of the world. It took me a while to just compose my works under one roof. This content is from college papers and my defunct blog. These works are circa 2005 till 2022. My writings consist of random thoughts around 2am and silly dark thirty. With life comes change in views in life, I changed through the writing process from living and learning. I wanted to share my thoughts and feelings in a clear and concise manner. To paraphrase Richard Pryor, some men hold their feelings in and get ran over by buses. I did not want to repress my thoughts, so I decided to express them with this book. I made a slew of mistakes and that is ok. I hope that you the reader learn and laugh with your heart’s content. Enjoy. Read. Smile.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781387337972

Book preview

TONY KHALIL RODGERS

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Poems, Random Thoughts and Thoughtfulness

Introduction

Hello people of the world. It took me a while to just compose my works under one roof. This content is from college papers and my defunct blog. These works are circa 2005 till 2022. My writings consist of random thoughts around 2am and silly dark thirty. With life comes change in views in life, I changed through the writing process from living and learning. I wanted to share my thoughts and feelings in a clear and concise manner. To paraphrase Richard Pryor, some men hold their feelings in and get ran over by buses. I did not want to repress my thoughts, so I decided to express them with this book. I made a slew of mistakes and that is ok. I hope that you the reader learn and laugh with your heart’s content. Enjoy. Read. Smile.

Contents

Introduction

Racism in America

Looking for Myself

The Young and Waffle House

Joy and Pain

Thank You South Korea

One-Self

Share

The Arrogance of Men in Power

Vehicle in Tow

Cost of Suppression of Emotion

A Gender

Undocumented Immigrants

Diné

Yanomamo

These Movies

Late-Stage Adult Development

Elijah McClain

Bruce Lee

A Morning Song

How Children Learn to Read

Library Media Center

References

Racism in America

Many ethical issues of what is right or wrong are faced in America. There have been some dark times in America’s history when it came to human rights. The examples were slavery of African Americans, Indians losing their land, Asians seen as traders after Pearl Harbor, Jewish refugees fleeing from Hitler and Middle Easterners were attacked by Americans after 9–11. I would like to think because of the Civil Right Movements of the 1950’s and 1960’s that the United States became a better place. Even with the help of the NAACP, ALMA, Jew watch, federal government and other organization protect the rights of minorities throughout America. Yet, among certain individuals and groups hatred still exists. Racism still plagues us at every corner of our rural and urban areas.

When groups of people are separated and not treated fairly by the majority or minority of the population, that town or city does its people a disservice. You cheat yourself out of learning new things, better ways to growing your economy and safe communities. In the animal kingdom, safety is in the numbers, such as schools of fish and pack of wolves. The wolves take care of each other. One such issue faced today is that health care is not always available to certain groups. In assessing the issue of whether racism is still a problem, I will offer some insight to this problem (1) narrowing the focus on health care, (2) segregation/different races and (3) Anti-Semitism.

While racism is still a problem in the United States is a hot ethical issue faced in our society today, there is a big divide when it comes to health care. It is due to by monetary factors, racial factors, and residence.

Some hospitals and clinics due to where the location may receive more funding than others. A recent study suggested that in 2000, about 176 000 deaths were attributable to one specific form of racism, racial residential segregation (Gee, 2012).

Segregation may be due to different racial groups living in different areas of a city. When this happens, this creates a homogenous effect throughout that area. Unity throughout diverse backgrounds should be intertwined to form a more cohesive bound in the community. Unity is created out of diversity, not sameness. Discrimination does not just act the person, it also may result in secondary effects such as financial strain,21,49 decreased relationship quality,50, and intimate partner violence.51

For example, past experiences with discrimination can shape a Black mother’s involvement with her child’s school" (Gee, 2012,p.969). This will also change the path of the individual’s life such as unemployment, underemployment, incarceration, and illness as stated in figure 1 below.

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FIGURE 1 — Conceptual model of how racism may shape time in different states over the life. Course-(Gee, 2012, p.972)

Segregation is also used as way to avoid uncomfortable situations too. There are many living arrangements of Middle Easterners and Asians that live and work just their own community. This creates a safe environment free of racial profiling and ridicule from the rest of the society. For example, Despite their status as the second largest Asian American ethnic group, it has been striking to find that Filipino Americans in general, and their racial experiences, have received minimal attention in the psychological literature (Alvarez,2010,.p. 176 ). Also in the present study, participants from a lower socioeconomic class were more likely to use avoidance strategies in coping with racism than participants with a higher socioeconomic status (Alvarez, 2010, p. 177).

On that notion, both parties lose out on making each other’s society better. In some Asian communities’ fragmentation happens too. The Chinese, Korean’s, Japanese and Filipinos live separate in the same general area. Some of the Korean’s still have hostility towards Japan due to Japanese rule