Notions du bac, Places and forms of power

Places and forms of power

I’m going to talk about places and forms of power. First, I would like to give a definition of this notion. “Places” could be important buildings or institutions that represent a certain form of power, for example Buckingham Palace. A place can also be a country or a state. “Power” is the ability to control others, events, or resources, the ability to make things happen despite obstacles. This of course leads to conflicts between those who have power and those who don’t.                                

This year in class, we studied several documents about places and forms of power and in particular about the abuse of power. In order to illustrate this notion I have chosen to talk about the inequalities between blacks and white people and attempt to answer the question “How have Africans Americans achieved recognition?”                                                                                                                                To answer this question I will talk about two documents. The first is the movie Hurricane Carter. The second document is a picture illustrating American history and more particularly illustrating the history of black people in America.

So, I chose to talk about the movie Hurricane Carter because I think it’s important to introduce this notion with an example of discrimination. This film is drawn from a true story. It is about the life Of Hurricane Carter. He was a boxer; he was very strong and one of the best boxers. In1966 he was arrested for a triple murder. But he had not committed this murder. He was tried and arrested by white people. He spent almost 20 years in jail. He was arrested for something he didn’t do. There was nothing to prove that Carter had committed these murders. He was imprisoned for the only reason that he was black. This is completely unfair! Lawyers and policemen were all white men. He spent 20 years of his life in jail because he was black that was the only reason. The example of Hurricane Carter shows us how much African Americans have been discriminated.

The second document is a picture. The picture represents two history books. There are 13 photos illustrating the story of black people in America. There are 2 pictures that represent the first stage of their history, slavery. The next 4 pictures illustrate the second stage of their history, segregation with the “Jims Crow laws” who advocated the strict separation in public places between white and colored people. Those who didn’t respect those laws could be severely punished or worse killed by the Ka Klux Klan, an extremist organization in favor of white supremacy. On the right page of the book, six pictures represent the last stage, equality, called the Civil rights movement. Finally we see a color picture, it represents Barack Obama. This cartoon doesn’t illustrate the past but the present of America.  Barack Obama became the first black president of USA. With this drawing, we can see the evolution of the condition of black people in America.

To conclude, discrimination against black peoples was very violent in the USA. But the evolution of mentality changed many things. The proof  is that Barack Obama was elected president! This shows a real progress.

However, racial prejudices still exist and indeed Donald Trumps the new president of USA has “racist” ideas and in addition he was endorsed by the KKK.

Idea of Progress

I’m going to talk about the idea of progress. First I would like to give a definition of this notion. The idea of progress can be defined as a development towards better, more complete or more modern condition. A progress could be a technical, or scientific, or social advance which contributes to making the world a better place.                                                                                                                                                       This year in class we studied several documents about the idea of progress and in particular about social progress. In order to illustrate this notion I have chosen to talk about the place of women in the society and attempt to answer the question “How does the evolution of society influence the place of women?”

                                                                                                                                                                                     To answer this question I will introduce 2 documents. The first is made of 5 pictures which deal with the status of women and I’m going talk about 1 of them. The second document is a documentary about the gender pay gap.

So, the first document is made of 5 pictures. 1 picture among them is for me very interesting. In fact, it’s a picture where we can see women playing football. In the past football was only for boys, there was no female football team. But nowadays this has changed; there are women football teams.  But my opinion is divided because, on the one hand, football is more popular among women and now there are professional team for women. And on the other hand, female football players are less paid than their male counterparts and women football is less popular. For example, their games are not as often broadcasted. For me, it’s important that women can play football like men. Football is just a sport, a passion and everybody should be able to play. I think that discrimination against women remain too present! I don’t understand why male football is more broadcasted and why male players are more paid. In fact, it’s the same sport and every player should play in the same condition. And so, I wonder why football teams couldn’t be mixed (women and men)

The second document is about the gender pay gap. It was an audio document. At the beginning we could hear a demonstration. Women activists are demanding equality. Indeed 70% of women work, they still earn less than men. A women needs to work 15 months to earn what a man earn in a year. For the same job, a woman earns 78 cents while men earn 1 dollar. The situation is even more dramatic for women of color:  a black-American woman only earns 64 cents and Latinos 56 cents. In a year the gap represents 450 billion dollar. I think it’s completely crazy! In the past, women have always gained some rights later than men, like the right to vote. We live in a society supposedly “modern” so I don’t think it’s normal that women are less paid then men. They do the same job, so they have to receive the same pay.

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