December | 2016 | Make Mexico Pay for the Blog

Voter Disenfranchisement in a Modern Era

In Mecklenburg County, home of Charlotte, NC, many early voters stood in line for three hours waiting to cast their ballots. One man, a local report says, left the poll deterred by the long lines, only to return in the afternoon to find the wait longer than before. Whether to avoid missing work or the…

Democracy’s Silent Voices

Marquel Lee SOC 364 12/7/16 Democracy’s Silent Voices Felon disenfranchisement discredits the United States’ claim that it is a strong democracy. In 48 states across the US, convicted felons are denied the right to vote. Convicted felons who have completed and served their time should be granted the right to vote. We need to…

You Don’t Let Children Run With Scissors

Every day, 48 children between the age of zero and nineteen are shot. Gun violence is a prominent issue in this country, one that claims the lives of 90 people per day. While I am a firm believer in the 2nd Amendment, the United States is much different than it was when the Bill of…

The Societal Eye of Different Gendered Candidates

Would you change the way you evaluate a candidate or your vote just because of their gender? Gender is a social construct and gender statuses are socially created by what society deems is correct for a certain gender. With that said, one’s gender may factor into the choice of the voter and candidate evaluations when…

Issues of Intolerance

When I heard about the gruesome events that took place on the campus of Ohio State University on November 28th, I knew they were undoubtedly motivated by hate, but was it terrorism? Is driving a car onto a campus with the intention of murdering and stabbing innocent college students terrorism? Domestic terrorism, per American law,…

Don’t Feed The Fear

Three dead. 264 injured. Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev turned the 117th Boston Marathon into a nightmare. A day dedicated to celebrating the world’s oldest marathon was turned into a day full of horror and heartbreak in the span of 12 seconds. The brothers stashed pressure cookers into backpacks and deposited them alongside the marathon. In…

The American Dream: Risking It All

Why would someone repeatedly try something again and again after failing time and time again? Why would they risk their life for something that isn’t guaranteed? That is what many migrants from Mexico do in order to reach the American Dream. President-elect Trump’s plan to stop immigration is to begin “working on an impenetrable, physical,…

Terrorist = Muslim

Dylann Roof, the murderer of nine African Americans in the Charleston church shooting, goes on trial in January. This attack has been classified as a possible hate crime, but many people question why it is not terrorism? Is it because he is white? Our country has recently suffered from more attacks than ever before, but…

Running Segregation: Prolonged Residential Segregation in America

“Blair, if you keep running over there, someone is going to hurt you! It’s so unsafe,” or even better, “Your dad got jumped over there when he was your age. What are you thinking?” I usually hear similar comments when I run anywhere near the train tracks because they’re on “that” side of town. It’s…

How the spokesperson of the “silent majority” was elected by the minority?

As we are writing those lines, the Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton has obtained around 2,5 millions of votes more than her Republican opponent Donald Trump at the last presidential election, so in a democracy she should be the 45th president of the United States right? But that hypothesis does not include the existence of the…