Michelle Jackson December 14th 2011
Final
In this paper I will focus on Martin Luther King’s ideas about non-violence. I will connect what I have learned about King to the other class in this cluster by explaining how the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was greatly affected by what King stood for. I will also explain how the language of human rights works and how it is effective.
Martin Luther King’s non-violent theory was overpowered by the use of love. The love that he had for God as well and the love he had for his “brothers and sisters.” He felt that the love he had for God gave him the inner strength to do what he did best…love those who loved AND hated him. I believe that the reason king’s non-violent theory worked was because; no matter how many times his people were beaten, bitten by police dogs, and sprayed down with the water hoses, they were still able to get back up and stand for what they believed in. If you fight violence with violence you are only going to make the situation worse. It’s going to create more chaos and will play a huge role in the destruction of one’s soul and spirit. Nothing will get accomplished. King states, “If we assume that mankind has a right to survive than we must find an alternative to was and destruction” (J. Washington 39). If we continue to fight fire with fire, it is inevitable that mankind would eventually be destroyed. As King puts it so elegantly, “True nonviolent resistance is not unrealistic submission to evil power. It is rather a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love, in the faith that it is better to be the recipient of violence than the inflictor of it, since the later only multiplies the existence of violence and bitterness in the universe, while the former may develop a sense of shame in the opponent, and thereby bring about a transformation and chance of heart” (J. Washington 26). I believe, and I’m sure that King’s beliefs were the same, that love is contagious. If we can all learn to turn the other cheek and do the right thing, more good would come out of it.
Law and Human Rights was an interesting class that was a part of this cluster. I learned that we are all born free and equal, we have the right to life, we are all equal before the law, we have the right to no torture, no unfair detainment, the freedom to move, the right to asylum, the freedom of thought, the freedom of expression, the right to public assemble, the right to education, and the right to food and shelter for all. These rights are just of few that are part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted by the United Nations on December 10th 1948. Martin Luther King fought hard to keep these rights intact from the Poor People’s Campaign, to the Montgomery boycott, to The Birmingham March, to Selma. These were movements that were greatly affected by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights one way or another.
I thought that language was just another form of expression that we use to understand each other. However, I have learned that it is more to language than just speaking it. It’s not just English, Spanish, French, etc. I’ve learned to thing outside the box just a little bit, because now I realize that language can be used to affirm or deny someone their human rights.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Sunday, December 4, 2011
INTRO TO LANGUAGE EXTRA CREDIT ESSAY
When I signed up for the Intro to Language class, it was nothing that I had
expected it to be. I thought that language was just a form of expression that we use to
understand each other weather we speak English, Spanish, French, German, or any one of
the six-thousand five-hundred languages that there are in the world. I thought that
language was just language. Little did I know that there is much more to it than it just
being spoken. It’s deeper than that. The sources that i will be using to support my beliefs
will be from the texts "The Study of Language" written by George Yule as well as "When I Was a
Slave" edited by Norman Yetman
Since the beginning of time, cavemen were able to communicate with each other
using language. “In Charles Darwin’s vision of the origins of language, early humans had
already developed musical ability prior to language and were using it to charm each
other” (Yule 1). No one really knows or understands how language came about, but it is
an assumption that this was how it originated. When cavemen produced natural sounds,
such as grunts, it is believed that this is how the first language got started around 100,000
years ago unlike the first written language which is believed to have been started about
5,000 years ago.
There are six different sources that we use to define language; The natural sound
source, The Devine Source, The Social Interaction Source, The Physical Adaptation
Source, The Tool Making Source, and The Genetic Source. Each one of these sources are
used to help us understand the characteristics of language-from how we produce sounds
physically, to how we use sounds to understand one another. “…We still don’t seem to
have a non-controversial definition as what counts as using language. One solution might
be to stop thinking of language , at least in the phrase ‘using language’ as a single thing
that one can either have or not have” (Yule 20). We must start thinking outside the box
when we think and talk about language. It’s not just based on the way we speak and or
communicate with one another.
Language is also broken down into something that we call grammar. Grammar is
used to analyze the structure of a phrase and or sentence. Interestingly enough, there are
different parts of speech to help us do this-such and; a noun, an article, an adjective, a
verb, an adverb, and a preposition. “We assume that the use of words to refer to people,
places, and times was a simple matter. However, words themselves don’t refer to
anything. People refer” (Yule 131). We call this term reference, which is an act in which
a speaker and or writer uses language to enable a listener and or reader to identify
someone or something. For example: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a list
of thirty rights given to us humans automatically the day we are born. These rights
protect our dignity and our sanity. They are protected by law. We are all born free and
equal and no one has the right to discriminate against another human being. We also have
the right to life, the right to a fair trial, the right to privacy, freedom of thought, freedom
of expression and no one can take away your human rights. However, back in the 1800’s,
people used language in a way that was arbitrary compared to the way we live today.
There were slaves that didn’t share these rights because the UDHR did not exist. We can
see an example of this in the text “When I Was a Slave” edited by Norman Yetman. Delia
Garlic was one of the slave that states “It’s bad to belong to folks dat own you soul and
body, dat can tie up to a tree with yo’ face to d’ tree and yo’ arms fastened tight around it,
who take a long curlin’ whip and cut the blood every lick” (Yetman 43) Slaves had no
freedom at all, they were property…owned by someone else. At any giving time they
were beaten and even killed for things such as crying. Their Masters used language to
take away the human rights that they should’ve had but didn’t. This is just an example of
the reason why the UDHR was created…so that people cannot use language as a form of
punishment towards another human being. LANGUAGE CAN BE USED TO EITHER AFFIRM OR
DENY THE RIGHTS THAT WERE GIVEN TO US AS HUMANS!!!
expected it to be. I thought that language was just a form of expression that we use to
understand each other weather we speak English, Spanish, French, German, or any one of
the six-thousand five-hundred languages that there are in the world. I thought that
language was just language. Little did I know that there is much more to it than it just
being spoken. It’s deeper than that. The sources that i will be using to support my beliefs
will be from the texts "The Study of Language" written by George Yule as well as "When I Was a
Slave" edited by Norman Yetman
Since the beginning of time, cavemen were able to communicate with each other
using language. “In Charles Darwin’s vision of the origins of language, early humans had
already developed musical ability prior to language and were using it to charm each
other” (Yule 1). No one really knows or understands how language came about, but it is
an assumption that this was how it originated. When cavemen produced natural sounds,
such as grunts, it is believed that this is how the first language got started around 100,000
years ago unlike the first written language which is believed to have been started about
5,000 years ago.
There are six different sources that we use to define language; The natural sound
source, The Devine Source, The Social Interaction Source, The Physical Adaptation
Source, The Tool Making Source, and The Genetic Source. Each one of these sources are
used to help us understand the characteristics of language-from how we produce sounds
physically, to how we use sounds to understand one another. “…We still don’t seem to
have a non-controversial definition as what counts as using language. One solution might
be to stop thinking of language , at least in the phrase ‘using language’ as a single thing
that one can either have or not have” (Yule 20). We must start thinking outside the box
when we think and talk about language. It’s not just based on the way we speak and or
communicate with one another.
Language is also broken down into something that we call grammar. Grammar is
used to analyze the structure of a phrase and or sentence. Interestingly enough, there are
different parts of speech to help us do this-such and; a noun, an article, an adjective, a
verb, an adverb, and a preposition. “We assume that the use of words to refer to people,
places, and times was a simple matter. However, words themselves don’t refer to
anything. People refer” (Yule 131). We call this term reference, which is an act in which
a speaker and or writer uses language to enable a listener and or reader to identify
someone or something. For example: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a list
of thirty rights given to us humans automatically the day we are born. These rights
protect our dignity and our sanity. They are protected by law. We are all born free and
equal and no one has the right to discriminate against another human being. We also have
the right to life, the right to a fair trial, the right to privacy, freedom of thought, freedom
of expression and no one can take away your human rights. However, back in the 1800’s,
people used language in a way that was arbitrary compared to the way we live today.
There were slaves that didn’t share these rights because the UDHR did not exist. We can
see an example of this in the text “When I Was a Slave” edited by Norman Yetman. Delia
Garlic was one of the slave that states “It’s bad to belong to folks dat own you soul and
body, dat can tie up to a tree with yo’ face to d’ tree and yo’ arms fastened tight around it,
who take a long curlin’ whip and cut the blood every lick” (Yetman 43) Slaves had no
freedom at all, they were property…owned by someone else. At any giving time they
were beaten and even killed for things such as crying. Their Masters used language to
take away the human rights that they should’ve had but didn’t. This is just an example of
the reason why the UDHR was created…so that people cannot use language as a form of
punishment towards another human being. LANGUAGE CAN BE USED TO EITHER AFFIRM OR
DENY THE RIGHTS THAT WERE GIVEN TO US AS HUMANS!!!
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