Archives mensuelles : janvier 2013

USA and races

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The United States is a diverse country, racially and ethnically. Six races are officially recognized :

  • White

  • American Indian

  • Alaska Native

  • Asian

  • Black or African American

  • Native Hawaiian

The United States Census Bureau also classifies Americans as « Hispanics or Latino »and « Not Hispanic or Latino », which identifies Hispanic and Latino Americans as a racially diverse ethnicity that composes the largest minority group in the nation.

Interracial marriage :

Interracial marriage in USA is autorized since 1967 thanks to the Supreme court decision, who deemed anti-miscenegation laws as an unconstitutional principle. So they legalize interracial marriage.

In 2010 18% of heterosexual unmarried couples were of different races.

The geographical distribution :

In the United States the distribution of the different is unequal because we can see on the map below (1) that all the different ethnicities are separated on some districts but they aren’t mixed.

We also have more precise figures ( see the table this below(2)). This a table which represents the percentage of each Race in USA.

We can see the large white majority in USA.

 

Some references on the net :

On the net you can have a lots of documents in touch with this subject, like videos, interviews… We selected few documents that you can find on internet :

– The first is an interview of Randall Kennedy, that you will find at this internet address :

http://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2010/02/01/randall-kennedy-la-question-raciale-si-explosive_1299548_3232.html

This interview appeared in «Le Monde» on 2010

– The second is a famous speech of Obama pronounced on 18 of March 2008 during his first mandate. You can hear this speech on youtube at this link this below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=FR&v=zrp-v2tHaDo&hl=fr

This speech spoke about race relationship in USA. Obama spoke about racial tensions, white privilege and race and inequlities in USA.

References :

  • Wikipédia

  • Google Images

  • Le Monde february 2010

 

 

The child poverty in USA

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Girl who needs help. We choose this picture because she attract people’s attention for the subject.

Around 14,7 million of American children – 20 % of the child population of the country – live in poverty.
This represents an increase of 2,5 million of poor children since 2000, when the poverty affected 17 percent of the children of the USA.
The poverty increased in 38 of the 50 American states, and the Nevada has the highest rate of children whose parents are unemployed or underemployed . Americans know today a situation of “economic growth “, why in the major U.S. cities such as Cleveland and Detroit, over half of the children live in poverty ?

The rate of homeless children in the United States increased of 33% since 2007.

The percentage of children in poverty in the USA moved from 16.9% in 2006 to almost 22% in 2010.

In 10 American states, one in four babies is born in a family in poverty .

At the moment, one in seven American lives through the food stamp program and one child in four Americans children also depends on the program.

So why do so many children suffer from so many difficulties?

 

One of the reason is the fact that millions of parents are unemployed . The governement has announced that the official unemployment rate is 8.6%, but when you give an honest look at the real numbers, the situation is much worse than that.

 

 

This graph represent the rate of children who lives in a household with an income lower of 50 % of

the national median. The United States are the second country behind Romania with 23,1% of children who lives with an income lower to 50% of the national median.

 Child poverty rates are highest among black, Latino, and American Indian children.

Across the states, official child poverty rates range from 9% in New Hampshire to 31% in Mississippi.

 The child poverty reckon thanks to 14 criteria.

Some examples :

  • 3 meals for day

  • One meal for day with meat, chicken or fish

  • Everyday fresh vegetables and fruits

  • Internet connection

  • To be able to invite friend at home to share a meal and to play

 In USA the education higher are expensive, so some families can’t paid eduction for their children.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb-PQESPeG8

This is 9 result this poverty children in the USA :

 -15 million of American children live below the federal poverty line

-3,8 million more children are living in poverty today than in 2000

-Every 18 minutes an infants dies before their 1st birthday

-24% of children age 6 and younger live in poor families

-In 2009, 1 in 4 Americans struggled to afford the food they needed

-After Katrina, Mississippi had the 3rd highest child poverty rate in the country

-21% of household with children experience food insecurity

-23,3% of all children in the US are struggling against hunger

-The nutrition of the Appalachian children is being neglected due to their severe poverty

Obama with medias.

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By cwnewser

1- Social Network

-Since 2008, the candidates use the variety of the social website because it’s easy to

communicate with their electors . Republican and Democratic campaigns fought with social site like Facebook and Twitter but they still use TV or newspapers .

 It’s not enough for the presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney to kiss babies, shake hands and lunch at small-town diners to win over voters. In 2012, they also need to get close to citizens online. They use the social Web to get its message and appeal to voters.

Social Web played an important rôle in the 2008 election but now usage are multiplied by 10, because they can spoil quickly the information.

Example of type of Web Site :

-Facebook : Facebook, the best social sites, is still one of the most influential social media tools for politicians, entertainers, celebrities and other people. Getting a user to share, comment and like.

-Twitter : they can debate for their opinion and they influence other people who don’t have any opinion.

-Instagram: Instagram, the popular mobile photo-sharing application, has more than 100 million registered users who upload pictures from moments their everyday lives . This social web is very good because this site is administrator by users and not by Obama or Romney .

-Youtube : Both campaigns have active YouTube channels, where they have posted a lot of video advertisements where there is A melting pot of TV show or debate, or video of their everyday lives.

-Tumblr, Pinterest , Spotify , …

2- Other medias

In th U.S the media are a huge influence on the presidential campaign. There are a lot of videos for people to vote with Well-Know people ( since 2008 for Obama ) found with internet and also spoil at the TV during the campaign because nowadays the newspaper with less influence than TV and the internet.

In 2008 celebrities made an advertisement for people to understand that vote is important , they say that if you don’t care about economy, education,wars.. you haven’t to vote but if you care a bit about the country you have to make something and go to the polls !

 

 

This year there is a new video to incite young people to vote they say that you can make the difference, you have to be strong because you matter the country needs your vote.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-B6qiPMGII

Barack Obama has his own website where you can see the different issues of the campaign, video to vote for Obama and you can donate to the campaign, there are some picture of Barack Obama with his wife…
There is also videos against Mitt Romney :

OBAMACARE

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(source :http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7225/7216874956_465eab8b37_h.jpg)

Being reelected, Obama renovates his reform which is going to cover more than 32 million American. This reform creates lots of tensions because of its price, extent, restraints …

By this reform, in 2008, the American President won a battle that not a democrat had obtained these last past hundred years : giving to the nation a real health coverage. During his first mandate, his project of coverage didn’t work well. But now, Barack Obama can shape this reform.

What is the ObamaCare ?

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (called Obamacare) was signed into law on March 23, 2010. This mandate won’t change for the 220 million american already insured or supported by medicaid.

 On the other hand, the law forces the citizens to have a health insurance before to 2014, under penality of financial sanctions. The poorest must apply to Medicaid. 24 million inhabitants are exculded : immigrants, prisoners, Native Americans …

What Does It Mean To Amercian Health Care ?

 The Affordable Care Act contains over two thousand pages of reforms to the insurance industry and the health care industry in order to cut healthcare costs and to provide affordable health insurance to all Americans.

 There are around 44 million Americans who currently are unable to get health insurance. What ObamaCare does is help these individuals to get health insurance through expanding Medicaid and Medicare and offering assistance to Americans who cannot currently afford healthcare.

The High Cost Of Living

The estimated cost to cover 70% of medical expenses is :

  • 5200 dollars ( 4100 euros ) per person and per year in 2016

  • 14 100 dollars ( 11 300 euros ) per family per year.

This price doesn’t please everybody. Indeed, the Doctor Jose Miranda finds that the United States spends too much money per inhabitant : “It’s amazing that we spend nearly twice as much per person for the health care in the United States than Canada. With all the money that Americans spend, they should be the first in the world.”

 Before this reform , the insurances could choose their clients. So they chose healthy individuals without risk of disease. For example, they could refuse obese, disabled … But now, the law requires insurance companies to take in charge anyone turning to them, whatever their state of health, again under penality of financial sanctions.

On this graphic we can see the different income thresholds ineligibility in the United States for the medicaid. Its shows us that it’s unevenly distributed. Indeed in Texas, for example, if you earn more than 5000 dollars, you can not get the medicaid, whereas in California if you earn less than 15000 dollars you can get it.

 

Shocking figures :

46 millions : number of americans free of health insurrance before the reform.

32 millions : number of americans more who will be covered thanks to the reform.

$940 billions : estimated cost of the reform decade.

 

Behind the scenes.

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Between power and destabilization.

Let’s talk about start of this story. Obama’s campaign in order to ensure his reelection started the following day of his election, in 2008. His first desk of his reelection capaign’s opened in 2009 and targeted far-sighted americans.

His politic and actions are very important too, let’s talk about it now. He had a political about the conflict in the middle East, remember that he promised that usa will leave Irak. He had the support from Hollywood, lawyers, communication groups and green energy.

Obama’s qualities in his campain are that he was the first American president to support homosexual reltionships, he also put a stop to American homosexual taboo in the army. He’s a defender of abortion rights, exept astrocious crimes.

Let’s work on the money invested.

For both campaigns, his partners raised 1,4 milliards of dollars.Indeed Obama raised 88 millions of dollars but spent 176 millions. His patrimony is around 8 millions of dollars, thanks to his books and the 20% pay the government. Half of his money was invested in television spots. They also collected a lot of money, thanks to internet, 690 million $.

One of his message «I will be outspent »  was very pertinent to the population because it gathered 2,5 millions of dollars.

Obama’s party had an enormous adancee thanks to spots in oder to destabilize the opponent in not convinced states. Very important too : rallying of millions of sympatisers.

This action cost a lot to his party, but was very relevant.

About television spots, it’s a faboulous way to collect electors because medias are very important in America, mainly for the young population. They maked a video plugged the party’s advantages or destablized the opponent.

Some exemples, Obama’s camp made a video about Mitt Romney, this video is a response to democrate’s attacks. « Economy according to Romney, it never works and it will never work” conclude the voice on the video, before showing Mitt Romney’s negative assessment.

Let’s go to the other side of the election, with the candidate Mitt Romney !

Mitt Romney was the governor of the Massachussets. He represented the Republican Party at the last American election. He was a very talented lawyer and saved the Winter Games of Salt Lake city of a decifit.

He is against abortion and gay marriage.

 

Mitt Romney spent$992.0 million dollars during his campaign. In a Washington Post statistics, we can see that his campaign comity spent rises to 413 million dollars.

For an ad (we will talk about Mitt’s TV ads on the next titles), he spent the large amount of 131,6 million dollars.

Romney used a lot of medias for his campaign. He ordered a video for it to be broadcast on TV. This ad cost 25 million dollars, the equivalent of 19,6 million euros.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdIKr_zX7FE&feature=player_embedded

But the biggest advertisement he ordered is called « Restore our Future ».

 

$131.6million were spent just for this ad.

Ann Romney, his wife, did a lot of apparitions on TV, during her husband’s interventions. She has a lot of influence on the electors, thanks to her speaking talents, and Romney knows that exposing his wife to the medias is a very good strategy.

 

Generally, his appearence on the medias is really well managed.

 

On his advertisements, he attacks Obama.

We can see ordinary people who are deceived by Obama. He wants to influence electors with the help of these  ads.

This picture represents the percentage of votes in all the country. (Source : AP)