A Remarkable Man, My Idol, My Grandfather Essay -- Personal Narrative

A Remarkable Man, My Idol, My Grandfather Dr. Benre’s comments: Marty paints a telling portrait of her step-grandfather, but never relies merely on telling the reader. Small anecdotes about her grandfather, as well as some of his habits, gave Marty’s story a much more powerful presentation that it would have if she had simply told the readers that he was neat and kind. More importantly, she maintains a significance to her story which travels from beginning to end. She uses her story to play on emotions without crossing the line into melodrama and makes a telling point in her conclusion. Marty has written an excellent story, not just an essay about someone she remembers. Â   Though he was an overwhelming three hundred pounds, my grandfather was a very neat, well-kept, respected man. His thick, ash colored hair always had to be just right. From the direction of the part to the brand of hairspray which held it in place, everything had to be just so. His shirt was always tucked in, and his belt always matched his shoes. Because of his huge girth, he had a seventy-eight inch waist, his legs reminded me of a penguin's— short and stubby. Everything about him amused me—from his love for the holidays to the way he continuously chewed ice and the incessant manner he had of rubbing his feet together. Although he was my father's stepfather, he loved us as if we were his own. Several times throughout the year, he would organize what he called "family time," which involved all thirteen grandchildren who gathered in one place to socialize. He also had a great love for holidays. For example, we all spent Christmas Eve on the levee looking at the bonfires, and for days preceding Christmas, we rode through town enjoying the ... ... day he died, he taught me a valuable lesson. If we love someone, we should tell the person often. I sometimes wonder if he knew just how much we loved him. All I have left are the memories we shared and the lessons he taught me, but they are good memories, and they are exceptional lessons. My grandfather was an astonishing man. Unfortunately, my son will never get to meet my grandfather, but I will instill in him the love for people my grandfather so diligently instilled in me. I never looked at him as "fat" or "different." I simply viewed him as more to love. Even though he is not physically with me anymore, I still do things with him in mind, wondering if he would approve or disapprove; I try to make the choice I think he would admire. He taught me life; he taught me love; and he taught me what was right. This remarkable man is my idol--my grandfather.

Blah Jogging Around

According to C. Wright Mills, what occurs in any one individual's life is interrelated with society as a whole. To possess sociological imagination as defined by Mills â€Å"To be aware of social stucture and to use it with sensibility IS to be capable of tracing such LINKAGES among great variety of milieux. † The sociological imagination helps give us the ability to understand the correlation of one's own biography, history, and traditions along with the knowledge of the social and historical influence society may have on that person or groups of people.Mills notion makes us want to investigate into an individual's biography and lifestyles, and place their findings within the surrounding circumstances in which events occur in order to see the whole picture of the society in which the individual lives. In Lisa J. McIntyre’s case study titled â€Å"Hernando Washington† we read about a young man named Hernando Washington who kidnaps, rapes, and murders a 29 year ol d woman named Sarah Gould.When using the sociological imagination to look into this we ask questions such as, â€Å"What was the social milieu in which the event takes place? † and â€Å"what effects did the social system have on the individual? †. Asking these questions, we see that Hernando lived in an area where police activity was almost non existent. Hernando’s brother had been shot and sister had been raped with absolutely no police action ever taking place. This explains why Hernando thought he could get away with his actions.If all this could happen before then what would be wrong if he was the one who did it. We also see that Hernando viewed the rape he committed as sex. He thought that since Sarah was alone and with no male acomplise, it was ok for him to in his perspective have sex with (rape) her. The sociologists way of looking at what Hernando did doesn’t make did ok, but it does explain why he did it. He in his right mind with the situation s he had been placed in during his life thought that this was ok with just as much belief as what you and me think about it being wrong.

5 Interesting Facts About Slavery in the Americas

Slavery is a topic that never leaves the public consciousness; films, books, art, and theater have all been created about the institution. Yet, many Americans still know far too little about the transatlantic slave trade. They cant say when it began or ended or how many Africans were kidnapped and enslaved against their will. Its difficult to discuss current issues related to slavery, such as reparations, without first understanding how the slave trade left its imprint on Africa, the Americas, and the world. Millions Shipped to the Americas While it’s common knowledge that six million Jews died during the Holocaust, the number of West Africans shipped to the Americas during the transatlantic slave trade from 1525 to 1866 remains a mystery to much of the public. According to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 12.5 million Africans were loaded up like human cargo and forever separated from their homes and families. Of those Africans, 10.7 million managed to live through the horrific journey known as the Middle Passage. Brazil: Slaverys Epicenter Slave traders shipped Africans all over the Americas, but far more of the enslaved population ended up in South America than any other region. Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, ​estimates that a single South American country—Brazil—received 4.86 million, or about half of all slaves who survived the trip to the New World. The United States, on the other hand, received 450,000 Africans. According to a 2016 U.S. Census Bureau report, roughly 45 million blacks live in the United States, and most of them are descendants of the Africans forced into the country during the slave trade. Slavery in the North Initially, slavery wasn’t just practiced in the Southern states of the United States, but in the North as well. Vermont stands out as the first state to abolish slavery, a move it made in 1777 after the U.S. liberated itself from Britain. Twenty-seven years later, all of the Northern states vowed to outlaw slavery, but it continued to be practiced in the North for years. That’s because the Northern states implemented legislation that made slavery’s abolition gradual rather than immediate. PBS points out that Pennsylvania passed its Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery in 1780, but gradual turned out to be an understatement. In 1850, hundreds of Pennsylvania blacks continued to live in bondage. Just more than a decade before the Civil War kicked off in 1861, slavery continued to be practiced in the North. Banning the Slave Trade The U.S. Congress passed a law in 1807 to ban the importation of enslaved Africans, and similar legislation took effect in Great Britain the same year. (The U.S. law went into effect on Jan. 1, 1808.) Given that South Carolina was the only state at this time that hadn’t outlawed the importation of slaves, Congress’ move wasn’t exactly groundbreaking. What’s more, by the time Congress decided to ban the importation of slaves, more than four million enslaved blacks already lived in the United States, according to the book Generations of Captivity: A History of African American Slaves. Since the children of those enslaved people would be born into slavery, and it wasn’t illegal for American slaveholders to trade those individuals domestically, the congressional act did not have a marked impact on slavery in the U.S. Elsewhere, Africans were still being shipped to Latin America and South America as late as the 1860s. Africans in the U.S. Today During the slave trade, about 30,000 enslaved Africans entered the U.S. yearly. Fast forward to 2005, and 50,000 Africans annually were entering the U.S. on their own volition. It marked a historic shift. â€Å"For the first time, more blacks are coming to the United States from Africa than during the slave trade,† The New York Times reported. The Times estimated that more than 600,000 Africans lived in the U.S. in 2005, about 1.7 percent of the African-American population. The actual number of Africans living in the United States might be even higher if the number of undocumented African immigrants was tallied.