A picture can say a thousand words. Frida Kahlo’s 1932 painting Self Portrait Between the Borderline of Mexico and the United States is thought provoking and captivating in the stark contrast between how two cultures are seen from varying perspectives. Kahlo is a renowned painter whose art is a significant part of Mexican culture and is powerful enough to remain relevant for over 80 years, her legacy influencing 2nd wave feminism and current political movements. Appropriate to the title of this painting, Kahlo is standing on the border of Mexico, to her right, and the United States, to her left. On Mexico’s side of the border, images are shown representing Kahlo’s perception of the country and its culture. Mexico’s side is a landscape, with
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The idea that anyone can go from rags to riches through hard work is appealing to the 500,000 people who immigrate to the United States each year (Zong 2015). In William Nelson’s Equal Opportunity, written for the Journal of Social Theory and Practice, the definition of equal opportunity is analyzed to gain further understanding of its significance. Nelson takes multiple well-known and often used definitions and compares them, questioning how these ideas impact everyday life. Nelson starts off by questioning the words themselves- if every opportunity was equally available to every single human being, would that require 'handicapping the talented '? In the satirical short story Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, taking place in a dystopian society obsessed with complete equality, this literal definition plays out scarily similar to the communist states critiqued in this work. The definition Nelson later focuses on, formed by D. A. Lloyd Thomas, former political philosophy professor at King’s College in London, identifies equal opportunity as “fair competition for scarce opportunities” (Nelson, 1984). Thomas acknowledges that if opportunity is the ability of doing something, then no one can have the same opportunities, and therefore opportunities should be given based exclusively on the relevant characteristics (Thomas, 1977). In relation to how employers hire employees, or how colleges accept students, this definition seems to be the one that is the most beneficial to all parties involved and easy to incorporate into American
The idea that anyone can go from rags to riches through hard work is appealing to the 500,000 people who immigrate to the United States each year (Zong 2015). In William Nelson’s Equal Opportunity, written for the Journal of Social Theory and Practice, the definition of equal opportunity is analyzed to gain further understanding of its significance. Nelson takes multiple well-known and often used definitions and compares them, questioning how these ideas impact everyday life. Nelson starts off by questioning the words themselves- if every opportunity was equally available to every single human being, would that require 'handicapping the talented '? In the satirical short story Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut, taking place in a dystopian society obsessed with complete equality, this literal definition plays out scarily similar to the communist states critiqued in this work. The definition Nelson later focuses on, formed by D. A. Lloyd Thomas, former political philosophy professor at King’s College in London, identifies equal opportunity as “fair competition for scarce opportunities” (Nelson, 1984). Thomas acknowledges that if opportunity is the ability of doing something, then no one can have the same opportunities, and therefore opportunities should be given based exclusively on the relevant characteristics (Thomas, 1977). In relation to how employers hire employees, or how colleges accept students, this definition seems to be the one that is the most beneficial to all parties involved and easy to incorporate into American