Affirmative Action Essays (649 words) - Social Inequality

Affirmative Action Affirmative action is described as the term meant taking appropriate steps to eradicate the then widespread practices of racial, religious, and ethnic discrimination. The history of affirmative action starts a long time before this definition was stated during the early 1960's. It starts back to the Declaration of Independence where it states all men are created equal. It moves toward the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments which involved the freeing of slaves, abolishing slavery, conferred citizenship on all persons born in the United States, and guaranteeing voting rights to all citizens. There were also many court cases that helped move forth into affirmative action. A few examples would be Buchanan v. Warley, Plessy v. Ferguson, and Brown v. Board of Education. The latter court case was a real firestorm over affirmative action, which ruled that all local, state, and federal laws that enforced segregation in education was striked down. President John F. Kennedy first used the phrase "Affirmative Action" when he issued Executive Order 10952. This order created the Equal Opportunity Commission or the EEOC and contractors on projects financed with federal funds to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, ant employees are treated during their employment without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin." President Kennedy also pushed for more legislation but was not alive to see it go through. Proceeding Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson took over the fight and pushed for the passing of Civil Rights Act of 1964, which barred discrimination in the variety of private and public settings. It included prohibiting discrimination in private facilities, outlawed discrimination in federally-funded-programs, and prohibited discrimination by both private and public employers and so forth. Still under Johnson's control, the Executive Order 11246, placed the responsibility for affirmative action enforcement with the Department of Labor. This lead to the OFCCP, which is the Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Program, which made Affirmative Action stronger in for contractors and made them submit affirmative action plans. LBJ did much for affirmative action programs and did not receive direct assault until 30 years later by more recent politicians. Nixon took over and helped affirmative action by producing the Philadelphia Plan and supporting the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, which extended EEOC's jurisdiction. Nixon's support was short-lived to receive votes and then turned his back to all. Moving forward to Regan's Long legacy of trouble he made a strong oppression to affirmative action in the early eighties to receive more votes from "an increasing amount of insecure white middle class voters." He had an enormous negative impact on affirmative action by cutting funds to the OFCCP and EEOC and to repel some to the acts that had been passed prior. He was a on a constant attack to affirmative action falsely labeling related programs as "racial quotas" and "reverse discrimination." President Bush was not help with affirmative action, staying very quiet about it and trying to stay out of the fight fore new laws. When Clinton came to office he was a hope for the civil rights community by his cabinet including four blacks, three women and two Hispanic men. He also had more women and minorities in his executive appointments that any other president. In 1995 he delivered a speech at the National Archives that announced a five-month review of affirmative action. The newest let down to affirmative action is proposition 209 that was proposed in California that ended affirmative action to all state programs. People are saying that this Proposition will be felt everywhere. In conclusion, Secretary of Labor Elizabeth Dole stated, "Despite the growing awareness among corporate leadership of the bottom-line value and economic imperative of including minorities and women in senior corporate management progress has been disappointingly show, and barriers persist which stop able people from achieving their full employment potential." Bibliography Cozic, Charles P. Civil Liberties Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc. Kluegel, James R. Beliefs About Inequality Americans' Views of what is and What Ought to Be. New York: Aldine De Gryter. "Time Line of Affirmative Action". Americans United for Affirmative Action.[cited 1997]. Available from http://www.auaa.org/timeline/ 1997

Bulfinchs Version of the Story of Apollo and Daphne

Bulfinchs Version of the Story of Apollo and Daphne The slime with which the earth was covered by the waters of the flood produced an excessive fertility, which called forth every variety of production, both bad and good. Among the rest, Python, an enormous serpent, crept forth, the terror of the people, and lurked in the caves of Mount Parnassus. Apollo slew him with his arrows - weapons which he had not before used against any but feeble animals, hares, wild goats, and such game. In commemoration of this illustrious conquest he instituted the Pythian games, in which the victor in feats of strength, swiftness of foot, or in the chariot race was crowned with a wreath of beech leaves; for the laurel was not yet adopted by Apollo as his own tree. The famous statue of Apollo called the Belvedere represents the god after this victory over the serpent Python. To this Byron alludes in his Childe Harold, iv. 161: ...The lord of the unerring bow,The god of life, and poetry, and light,The Sun, in human limbs arrayed, and browAll radiant from his triumph in the fight.The shaft has just been shot; the arrow brightWith an immortals vengeance; in his eyeAnd nostril, beautiful disdain, and mightAnd majesty flash their full lightnings by,Developing in that one glance the Deity. Apollo and Daphne Daphne was​ Apollos first love. It was not brought about by accident, but by the malice of Cupid. Apollo saw the boy playing with his bow and arrows; and being himself elated with his recent victory over Python, he said to him, What have you to do with warlike weapons, saucy boy? Leave them for hands worthy of them, Behold the conquest I have won by means of them over the vast serpent who stretched his poisonous body over acres of the plain! Be content with your torch, child, and kindle up your flames, as you call them, where you will, but presume not to meddle with my weapons. Venuss boy heard these words, and rejoined, Your arrows may strike all things else, Apollo, but mine shall strike you. So saying, he took his stand on a rock of Parnassus, and drew from his quiver two arrows of different workmanship, one to excite love, the other to repel it. The former was of gold and sharp pointed, the latter blunt and tipped with lead. With the leaden shaft he struck the nymph Daphne , the daughter of the river god Peneus, and with the golden one Apollo, through the heart. Forthwith the god was seized with love for the maiden, and she abhorred the thought of loving. Her delight was in woodland sports and in the spoils of the chase. lovers sought her, but she spurned them all, ranging the woods, and taking no thought of Cupid nor of Hymen. Her father often said to her, Daughter, you owe me a son-in-law; you owe me grandchildren. She, hating the thought of marriage as a crime, with her beautiful face tinged all over with blushes, threw her arms around her fathers neck, and said, Dearest father, grant me this favour, that I may always remain unmarried, like Diana. He consented, but at the same time said, Your own face will forbid it. Apollo loved her, and longed to obtain her; and he who gives oracles to all the world was not wise enough to look into his own fortunes. He saw her hair flung loose over her shoulders, and said, If so charming, in disorder, what would it be if arranged? He saw her eyes bright as stars; he saw her lips, and was not satisfied with only seeing them. He admired her hands and arms, naked to the shoulder, and whatever was hidden from view he imagined more beautiful still. He followed her; she fled, swifter than the wind, and delayed not a moment at his entreaties. Stay, said he, daughter of Peneus; I am not a foe. Do not fly me as a lamb flies the wolf, or a dove the hawk. It is for love I pursue you. You make me miserable, for fear you should fall and hurt yourself on these stones, and I should be the cause. Pray run slower, and I will follow slower. I am no clown, no rude peasant. Jupiter is my father, and I am lord of Delphos and Tenedos, and know all things, present and future. I am th e god of song and the lyre. My arrows fly true to the mark; but, alas! an arrow more fatal than mine has pierced my heart! I am the god of medicine, and know the virtues of all healing plants. Alas! I suffer a malady that no balm. can cure! The nymph continued her flight, and left his plea half uttered. And even as she fled she charmed him. The wind blew her garments, and her unbound hair streamed loose behind her. The god grew impatient to find his wooings thrown away, and, sped by Cupid, gained upon her in the race. It was like a hound pursuing a hare, with open jaws ready to seize, while the feebler animal darts forward, slipping from the very grasp. So flew the god and the virgin- he on the wings of love, and she on those of fear. The pursuer is the more rapid, however, and gains upon her, and his panting breath blows upon her hair. Her strength begins to fail, and, ready to sink, she calls upon her father, the river god: Help me, Peneus! open the earth to enclose me, or change my form, which has brought me into this danger! Scarcely had she spoken, when a stiffness seized all her limbs; her bosom began to be enclosed in a tender bark; her hair became leaves; her arms became branches; her foot stuck fast in the grou nd, as a root; her face became a tree-top, retaining nothing of its former self but its beauty, Apollo stood amazed. He touched the stem, and felt the flesh tremble under the new bark. He embraced the branches, and lavished kisses on the wood. The branches shrank from his lips. Since you cannot be my wife, said he, you shall assuredly be my tree. I will wear you for my crown; I will decorate with you my harp and my quiver; and when the great Roman conquerors lead up the triumphal pomp to the Capitol, you shall be woven into wreaths for their brows. And, as eternal youth is mine, you also shall be always green, and your leaf know no decay. The nymph, now changed into a Laurel tree, bowed its head in grateful acknowledgment. That Apollo should be the god both of music and poetry will not appear strange, but that medicine should also be assigned to his province, may. The poet Armstrong, himself a physician, thus accounts for it: Music exalts each joy, allays each grief,Expels diseases, softens every pain;And hence the wise of ancient days adoredOne power of physic, melody, and song. The story of Apollo and Daphne is of ten alluded to by the poets. Waller applies it to the case of one whose amatory verses, though they did not soften the heart of his mistress, yet won for the poet wide-spread fame: Yet what he sung in his immortal strain,Though unsuccessful, was not sung in vain.All but the nymph that should redress his wrong,Attend his passion and approve his song.Like Phoebus thus, acquiring unsought praise,He caught at love and filled his arms with bays. The following stanza from Shelleys Adonais alludes to Byrons early quarrel with the reviewers: The herded wolves, bold only to pursue;The obscene ravens, clamorous oer the dead;The vultures, to the conquerors banner true,Who feed where Desolation first has fed,And whose wings rain contagion: how they fled,When like Apollo, from his golden bow,The Pythian of the age one arrow spedAnd smiled! The spoilers tempt no second blow;They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them as they go. More Stories From Greek Mythology by Thomas Bulfinch Dragons TeethMinotaurPomegranate SeedsPyramus and Thisbe