Thursday, May 13, 2010

Lest: Narrative #2 (301-305) - Emily Mathews

In Narrative #2 entitled "Land of Equal Opportunity" and "Land of Difference", Cynthia Selfe expresses to us a world that we have come to adapt. That we see as a perfect land, but why? Because we are white? Because we are not in poverty? She portrays the American landscape as being open to everybody. In Paragraph two she states, "male and female, regardless of color, class, or connection". After which she goes against what she was saying and continues to say how this is all backwards. That this is the "land of opportunity narrative", or and "American tale".
On page 304 she continually talks about the "land of opportunity". But in this she states that "America is the land of opportunity only for some people", "the differential school graduation rate for blacks, whites, and Hispanics, the fact that we have never had a woman president, and the presence of border guards and the razor-wire fences over the Rio Grande. All these things remind us that opportunity is a commodity generally limited to privileged groups within this country." I think that what she saying here is that even though we seem equal, whites still hold the seniority over most things that happen, over most things that we are allowed to have. That America isn't a land of opportunity for all people, but for only those who have what it takes to make it that far. I don't agree with what she is stating here. Even though the black and Hispanic graduation rate differs from the white graduation rate, we have a black president and doctors, dentists, lawyers, teachers, of all races. We have a barbed wire fence over the Rio Grande not to keep people out and way from the success they can have here in the U.S., but to help them become legal here to further their success. We have privileged groups here, as does every country.
What Cynthia Selfe is stating in these few paragraphs of Narrative #2 I suppose is that America comes with a price tag. That in order to have the "land of opportunity" you have to have acceptance towards other races, sexes, just human beings. The "land of opportunity" is created by us

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