Category: Writing

Please, help with question #1 below. Thank you!
Reading:
TA-NEHISI COATES The Paranoid Style of American Policing Ta-Nehisi Coates, born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1975, began his career in journalism at the Washington City Paper and contributed to the Village Voice and Time before becoming an editor and national correspondent at the Atlantic. In 2015, he received both the National Book Award for Nonfiction for his autobiography, Between the World and Me (2015), and a visiting fellowship at the American Library in Paris. Coates’s essay, “The Paranoid Style of American Policing,” was first published in the Atlantic on December 30, 2015. In it, he addresses the rise in police violence against the black community and the loss of trust that many have in the police as an agent of order and justice. As you read, think about your own interactions with the police—either casual or perhaps more formal. Does what Coates says ring true for your experience? When I was around 10 years old, my father confronted a young man who was said to be “crazy.” The young man was always too quick to want to fight. A foul in a game of 21 was an insult to his honor. A cross word was cause for a duel, and you never knew what that cross word might be. One day, the young man got into it with one of my older brother’s friends. The young man pulled a metal stake out of the ground (there was some work being done nearby) and began swinging it wildly in a threatening manner. My father, my mother, or my older brother—I don’t recall which—told the other boy to go inside of our house. My dad then came outside. I don’t really remember what my father said to the young man. Perhaps he said something like “Go home,” or maybe something like, “Son, it’s over.” I don’t really recall. But what I do recall is that my dad did not shoot and kill the young man.
THE PARANOID STYLE OF AMERICAN POLICING That wasn’t the first time I’d seen my father confront the violence of young people without resorting to killing them. This was not remarkable. When you live in communities like ours—or perhaps any community—mediating violence between young people is part of being an adult. Sometimes the young people are involved in scary behavior—like threatening people with metal objects. And yet the notion that it is permissible, wise, moral, or advisable to kill such a person as a method of de-escalation, to kill because one was afraid, did not really exist among parents in my community. The same could not be said for those who came from outside of the community. This weekend, after a Chicago police officer killed her 19-year-old son Quintonio LeGrier, Janet Cooksey struggled to understand the mentality of the people she pays to keep her community safe: “‘What happened to Tasers? Seven times my son was shot,” Cooksey said. “The police are supposed to serve and protect us and yet they take the lives,” Cooksey said. “Where do we get our help?” she asked. LeGrier had struggled with mental illness. When LeGrier attempted to break down his father’s door, his father called the police, who apparently arrived to find the 19-year-old wielding a bat. Interpreting this as a lethal threat, one of the officers shot and killed LeGrier and somehow managed to shoot and kill one of his neighbors, Bettie Jones. Cooksey did not merely have a problem with how the police acted, but with the fact that the police were even called in the first place. “He should have called me,” Cooksey said of LeGrier’s father: Instead, the father called the Chicago Police Department. Likely he called them because he invested them with some measure of legitimacy. This is understandable. In America, police officers are agents of the state and thus bound by the social contract in a way that criminals, and even random citizens, are not. Criminals and random citizens are not paid to protect other citizens. Police officers are. By that logic, one might surmise that the police would be better able to mediate conflicts than community members. In Chicago, this appears, very often, not to be the case.
TA-NEHISI COATES It will not do to note that 99 percent of the time the police mediate conflicts without killing people any more than it will do for a restaurant to note that 99 percent of the time rats don’t run through the dining room. Nor will it do to point out that most black citizens are killed by other black citizens, not police officers, any more than it will do to point out that most American citizens are killed by other American citizens, not terrorists. If officers cannot be expected to act any better than ordinary citizens, why call them in the first place? Why invest them with any more power? Legitimacy is what is ultimately at stake here. When Cooksey says that her son’s father should not have called the police, when she says that they “are supposed to serve and protect us and yet they take the lives,” she is saying that police in Chicago are police in name only. This opinion is widely shared. Asked about the possibility of an investigation, Melvin Jones, the brother of Bettie Jones, could muster no confidence. “I already know how that will turn out,” he scoffed. “We all know how that will turn out.” Indeed, we probably do. Two days after Jones and LeGrier were killed, a district attorney in Ohio declined to prosecute the two officers who drove up, and within two seconds of arriving, killed the 12-year-old Tamir Rice. No one should be surprised by this. In America, we have decided that it is permissible, that it is wise, that it is moral for the police to de-escalate through killing. A standard which would not have held for my father in West Baltimore, which did not hold for me in Harlem, is reserved for those who have the maximum power—the right to kill on behalf of the state. When police cannot adhere to the standards of the neighborhood, of citizens, or of parents, what are they beyond a bigger gun and a sharper sword? By what right do they enforce their will, save force itself? When policing is delegitimized, when it becomes an occupying force, the community suffers. The neighbor-on-neighbor violence in Chicago, and in black communities around the country, is not an optical illusion. Policing is one part of the solution to that violence. But if citizens don’t trust officers, then policing can’t actually work. And in Chicago, it is very hard to muster reasons for trust. When Bettie Jones’s brother displays zero confidence in an investigation into the killing of his sister, he is not being cynical.
THE PARANOID STYLE OF AMERICAN POLICING He is shrewdly observing a government that executed a young man and sought to hide that fact from citizens. He is intelligently assessing a local government which, for two decades, ran a torture ring. What we have made of our police departments in America, what we have ordered them to do, is a direct challenge to any usable definition of democracy. A state that allows its agents to kill, to beat, to tase, without any real sanction, has ceased to govern and has commenced to simply rule.
Question
1. Why does Coates begin with a story from his childhood that has nothing directly to do with policing?

B. The Web is so exciting, and new technologies and techniques are emerging all the time. What’s commonplace one year becomes old hat the next. The only thing that seems to remain constant is people’s need to transmit information and to communicate with one another. These things drive people to shop, invest. and converse online, and it is this same force that is propelling them to leam online (Ko & Rossen. 2008). 4. “The digital Walden Pond will showcase a first-person point-of-view where you can wander through the lush New England foliage, stop to examine a bush and pick some fruit, cast a fishing rod, return to a spartan cabin modeled after Thoreau’s and just roam around the woods, grappling with life’s unknowable questions.” A According to Hayden (2012). the Walden Pond game will offer a first-person view in which the play can meander within the New England trees and wilderness, pause to study foliage or grab some food, go fishing. return home to a small cabin based on Thoreau’s cabin, and just venture around in the woods, pondering important questions of life (para. 3). B. According to Hayden (2012), the upcoming video game Walden Pond is a first-person game that simulates the life and experiences of Thoreau when he lived at Walden Pond. Based upon Thoreau’s famous work, Walden, the game allows players to experience life in the New England woods, providing opportunities for players to fish, gather food, live in a cabin, and contemplate life, all within a digital world (para. 3). 5. “Over the past century and a half, diverse Latino communities have mobilized to demand civic and political inclusion, a process that has also facilitated the formation of a pan-ethnic political identity. Although there have been continuous gains, the quest for full and equal inclusion remains. The fact that the Latino population continues to grow in numbers and needs, and that this growth is often seen as a challenge to the majority population, ensures that Latinos will remain politically engaged in the pursuit of a full political voice in the upcoming decades.” A. For the last 150 years, Latinos have worked to gain foothold in politics. This has led to pan-ethnic political identity, meaning that people whose immigrant roots are all in Latin nations have banded together to create one political bloc. Progress has been made, but there is stil a long way to go to achieve full political participation, especially as the expanding Latino population is viewed by some as threatening the white majority. The result is that Latinos continue to work toward equal engagement in politics. B. “Over the last century and a half, diverse Latino communities have mobilized to demand civic and political inclusion, a process that has also facilitated the formation of a pan-ethnic political identity. Although there have been continuous gains, the quest for full and equal inclusion remains. The fact that the Latino population continues to grow in numbers and needs, and that this growth is often seen as a challenge to the majority population, ensures that Latinos will continue to be a challenge to the majority population.”

Lawton, Graham. “The Truth about Vaping.”
New Scientist
, vol. 260, no. 3468, Elsevier BV, Dec. 2023, pp. 32-35, https://doi.org/10.1016/s0262-4079(23)02290-x.
Quest 5: Annotated Bibliography
Create an annotated bibliography of your sources.

What is meant by the formulation of universal law?
?      a.)
?      Acting according to a maxim that respects everyone
?      b.)
?      Acting according to the categorical imperative
?      c.)
?      Acting according to a maxim everyone can use
?      d.)
?      Acting according to an action’s objective morality
According to Kantian deontology, which of the following would make an act impermissible?
?      a.)
?      It is harmful to myself.
?      b.)
?      It is considered sinful by sacred texts.
?      c.)
?      It is forbidden by local custom or law.
?      d.)
?      It violates the categorical imperative.
Which of the following violates a person’s humanity, according to Kant?
?      a.)
?      Trying to influence someone
?      b.)
?      Hitting someone
?      c.)
?      Protecting someone from harm
?      d.)
?      Lying to someone
How would a Kantian deontologist evaluate murder?
?      a.)
?      It is morally wrong because it violates the victim’s humanity.
?      b.)
?      It is morally wrong if the victim feels any pain.
?      c.)
?      It is morally right when it is done with good intentions.
?      d.)
?      It is morally right when it puts a person out of his or her misery.
Which of the following people would likely be satisfied with Kantian deontology?
?      a.)
?      Carrie is looking for an ethical framework that advances her own agenda.
?      b.)
?      Candice is looking for an ethical framework that respects cultural norms.
?      c.)
?      Carl is looking for an ethical framework that considers a person’s intentions.
?      d.)
?      Cord is looking for an ethical framework that considers an action’s effects.
Which of the following represents a potential problem for Kantian deontology?
?      a.)
?      People can sometimes be treated as objects.
?      b.)
?      No weight is given to a person’s intentions.
?      c.)
?      Unintended effects have no impact on a person’s moral character.
?      d.)
?      The same rules don’t apply to everyone.
A friend is staying at my house. I hear a knock at the door and open it to find a gang of armed men. They ask if my friend is in the house. I want to say no so they will go away, but I also want to say yes because that is the truth.
Does this situation present a problem for Kantian deontological ethics?
?      a.)
?      No, because Kant claims an action is permissible if not performing that action leads to negative consequences.
?      b.)
?      Yes, because Kantian ethics states that right and wrong are determined by gathering all available information.
?      c.)
?      No, because Kant claims that self-interest should be the dominant consideration when faced with an ethical dilemma.
?      d.)
?      Yes, because Kantian ethics does not provide a clear way of handling conflicting moral duties.

Answer the following Question
The Mysterious Anxiety of Them and Us From Tales of Freedom (Reading):
Link
Questions:
In the middle of paragraph 3, the narrator says, “Then something strange happened.” Citing evidence from the text, explain what happened. How does what occurred affect the narrator’s feelings?
In paragraph 6, the narrator asks, “Did we who were eating feel guilty?” How does he respond to his own question? What does the way he answers tell you about him? Use examples from the text to support your answer.
How did you react to the last line of the poem, “It had been a dreamy day of rich sunlight”? Do you think it is consistent with the tone of the rest of the text? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.
What is the meaning of the word insurrection as it is used in the text? Write best definition here, along with a brief explanation of how you arrived at its meaning.
Use context clues to determine the meaning of the word sumptuous as it is used in “The Mysterious Anxiety of Them and Us.” Write definition of sumptuous here, along with those words or phrases from the text that helped most. Then check a dictionary to confirm your understanding.

Analyze the reasoning in the passage below. Like the preceding item, this
passage contains a combination of deductive and inductive reasoning.
‘Species-ists’ are like racists.  Racists violate the principal of equality when there is
a clash between their interests and the interests of those of another race by giving
greater weight to the interests of members of their own race.  Similarly, those I
would call species-ists give greater weight to be interests of members of their own
species when there is a clash between their interests and the interests of those
other species.  Racists and species-ists do not accept that pain felt by one group is
as bad as pain felt by other groups. We hold racists accountable when they act on
racist attitudes.  So we should hold species-ists accountable when they cause the
suffering of animals.
People are responsible for the harm they do to other people. If people are
responsible for the harm they do to other people then they are responsible for the
harm they do to animals. Harm to people and harm to animals are morally the
same.  So, all individuals are responsible for the harm they do to animals.
– Adapted from views advocated by Peter Singer
a.
Set the arguments out in standard form.
b.
Using course concepts, evaluate the reasoning.

Studies have shown that firms who engage in planning are:
Group of answer choices
more focused in the market place
more multicultural than those that do not
more financially successful than those that do not
higher in employee satisfaction than those that do not plan
inclined to develop strong cultures