San Francisco

San Francisco, officially named the City and County of San Francisco, was founded on June 29, 1776. It is the leading cultural and financial center of Northern California and the San Francisco Bay Area. The City had grown rapidly concerning the California Gold Rush of 1849. The increasing population form 1,000 to 25,000 in one year made it into the largest city on the West Coast at the time. 1906 the city was destroyed by the earthquake and fire but it was quickly rebuilt. After the Second World War, the unification of massive immigration, liberalizing attitudes and other factors made San Francisco to a center of liberal activism in the United States.

Nowadays, San Francisco is one of the top tourist destinations in the world. It is the 35th out of the 100 most visited cities worldwide. The city is beloved for its cool summers, fog, steep rolling hills and landmarks including the Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, Alcatraz Island, its former prison, and its Chinatown. San Francisco is also a primary banking and finance center, and more than 30 international financial institutions are based there.

Alcohol

The following text is about the theme alcohol.

The word ´alcohol´ is derived from the Arabic and means ´something fine´.
The first alcoholic products were fruit which were overripe. So alcohol was made accidental.
With the introduction of farming starts the production of soft drinks.

It gives a lot of types of alcohol: beer, wine, booze, whisky,vodka … and others.

People drink soft drinks because of their taste and their effect. It makes a better mood and doesn´t miss on a party. But when you drink too much you get drunk and in the long term that is addictive.

Specially teenagers are affected. Under the law in Germany you have to wait until you are sixteen-year-old, in America until you are 21 . The Parents of children in the USA, who consume alcohol when they are under 21, commit an offence. But who observe this law?
The most of the teenagers find it is cool to drink and it gives them the feeling to be adult.
But there are more adults who are addicted. Teenagers get more in an intoxication.
Finally is is distressed that the number of young people in Germany who are taken drunken to a hospital is twice as much as in the year 1990 while in the USA the children get a good but severe education with regard to alcohol.

Unemployment and Homelessness in America

In America, there is a high unemployment rate about 8 percent.
A report of the Department of Labor in 2010 published that there are 4,3 Million ’99ers’, those who are unemployed since more than 99 weeks and who are therefore out of the American unemployment pay system. Short, they do not have any financial income. Probably, America has more than 4.3 Million long-term unemployed because the Department of Labor does only count the number of those who are searching for a job. The others who already had given up are not mentioned. Some say that every fifth in America is unemployed.
After the mass redundancies due to the bad economic situation in 2008/9, most of the people did not find a new job. In spite of the actual economic growth, the heads of companies fear that another recession will return and consequently they do not reemploy the former workers. This is a vicious circle named ‘jobless growth’. That means for the 99ers to write countless applications without success. And this does not only relate to the unqualified people. Well educated people live on the subsistence level as well. You can find a homeless dish washer but also a homeless stockbroker in America. Even McDonalds do not give jobs to anyone.
But this is not the worst: The people lose not only their jobs, they lose their houses too and has to ask their parents or friends to join them in their houses and live with them. If this is not possible, they have to stay all nights in their cars or in hostels for homeless people which are mostly overcrowded. They are not able anymore to feed their families, they have to sell their properties in flea markets and have to wait for food on the ‘Food Bank’.

To minimize the homelessness in America, it would be an idea to extend the American unemployment pay system to more than 99 weeks and give the people more time to find a new job. Thus, the people and especially the families do not have to live in the streets or in hostels for homeless people. This would be important to encourage the children and to guarantee that they does continue to go to school, finish their education and realize the possibility to have a job on there own in the future. If they live on the streets and do not experience another daily routine they will not have the willpower to escape from the homelessness.

Obama, the President of the United States, proposed such an extension of the unemployment pay system to the House of Representatives which was excepted by the Democrats – the majority in the House of Representatives.
But in opposition to this, most participants of the senate are Republicans, who has to sign the law too. Their opinion about this topic is disadvantageous for the unemployed and homeless people. They are against an extension due to the shortage of money available to the state. Furthermore, the people will not continue to search a job if there is an financial income given by the state, proclaimed the Republican Senator of Texas John Kyl . Simultaneous, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch claimed that most of the unemployed are criminals and proposed drug testing for every unemployed on top of that.
That imbalance of opinions in the House of Representatives and in the Senate does and will make it very difficult to fight against the unemployment and homelessness in America.
A ray of hope could be President Obamas reelection. Even if the unemployment was at the maximum since 2009, in the weeks before his reelection in october 2012 surveys showed that there were created 873 000 new jobs.
Obama plans to reduce the taxes for the workers, modernize one-third of all schools in America,  give the people more job offers, support medium-sized companies, and relieve families financially etc.
Future will show, if it is enough to fight against unemployment and homelessness because it will not be easy for Obama with the opposition in the Senate which is convinced that America do not have enough resources to realize these propositions.

Hope

Actually the whole story, the whole life of Chris Gardner is based on hope. Every time when he hit the rock bottom again, he thought about his future and that he want to reach a life of happiness. And in this moment he had always the optimism to find a way out of the blues, to move on.

Also his mother gave him hope by support him in his future dreams, she always used to say: “If you want to make a million dollar, you will make a million dollar!” So she believed in his son and she made sure that he can reach everything when he just wants to.
But also other people gave Chris hope to dream of a better and richer future. For example the Ferrari driver in the beginning who shows the author that his purpose was not unrealizable.  

Chris never let somebody tell him, that he cannot do something. Because when you have a dream and the hope to reach this dream then you should protect it. It is important not to give up, also when the resistance increases.            

Racism

Racism has existed throughout the whole human history. It is the thought that one race is superior or inferior to another race. Racism is based on the belief that humans are separated in different races based on different appearances like skin color or social and moral traits, and culture like language, religion or place of birth. Racism does not understand an individual person by its individualism but puts it into a stereotype of one “race” and judges the person based on that stereotype. Racism did not only affect the way people treated each other but it also caused and influenced wars, slavery and the development of nations.

It is not possible to name a certain date when racism started because it existed from the beginning of mankind. It often started when different cultures collided but there are different motivations for racism.

A big section of Racism in history is the discrimination of black people in America by the white settlers who feared to lose their existence in the new country. When America was discovered in 1492 by Europeans, they soon started to enslave and kill the Native American Indians because the Native Americans’ nomad life style damaged the settlers’ farm life. Later Europeans enslaved Africans to sell them to the “New World” America to use them as workers mainly on cotton plantations. A huge slavery trade market developed between Europe, America and Africa dealing with black people as slaves. That happened because the African people did not live like the Western society not knowing how to use European technologies and having different religions than the one in Europe. Europeans and the first settlers in America justified the slave trade with the racist belief that the black people from Africa who did not match the European standards would be a different species of less value that the white society. It took more than four hundred years until slavery in America was officially disestablished in 1865 but it still lasted over a century before black people got more rights and possibilities. Today the situation of black Africans got better but there are still differences between blacks and whites. The discrimination against African-Americans and Native Americans in America is racism that is based on appearance like skin color and culture.

Another big example for Racism in history based on religion is the Nazi regime from 1933 that discriminated and killed almost one million Jews and people belonging to other minorities. Just as other racists before, they used false racial science to prove the inferiority of Jews. They wanted to clean the “healthy German race” from Jews and other minorities who were according to the National Socialists “subhuman” and “not worth living”. The racism went so far that the government started to discriminate and expel the victims of their politics from society and finally killed thousands of people with no good reason but racism.

I am just giving these two examples of racism in history but there has been much more of discrimination and racism throughout history in many countries of the world.

Today racism still exists and as the internet makes it easier to communicate and share a lot of information very quickly it is also easier to create hate sides and publish false information to spread racism. The question now is: What can we do against racism?

To find a solution for this problem we have to go back to the basis of racism: the classification of human races. But do different races of humans actually exist? From the science point of view of today, the answer is No. Scientists proved that genetically all humans are almost the same but still differ a lot. There do exist a lot of differences between humans but none of these differences can summarize a group of people to a race that is inferior to another. Moreover I believe that humans are very multifaceted and can be very different but nevertheless that does not give the right to anybody to discriminate, enslave or kill another person just because of appearance, culture or other racist reasons.

In my opinion the most important thing that we can do to minimize racism is to be open minded and to offer education to everybody so that people can understand why racism should not exist because there actually are no different races.

Relating to the book “The pursuit of Happyness” racism does play an important role in Chris’ life. Even though it is not especially mentioned in the book, Chris grew up during the civil rights movement in America when black people first started to defend themselves against the suppression and fought for their rights within the white society. That is why Chris, as a black man, often just is one of the few black people in his job and he sometimes has to work harder or gets into strange situations because of racial beliefs.

For example when Chris works in a surgical clinic of the marine many officers have less respect for him as a doctor because he is black until he successfully treatsthem.

Also in his later job as a stockbroker he soon learns that people had never dealt with a black person before and did not want to (p.226). That is why Chris concentrates on working on the phone because skin color does not make a difference on the phone. After Chris changes the company from Dean Witter to Bear Stearns he gets into another weird situation when he meets one of his top clients who told many racist jokes to Chris on the phone but finally the man accepts Chris as a good stockbroker regardless of his skin color (p.281).

All in all the fact that Chris is black affected his life a lot but nonetheless he manages to become successful in his life and overcomes racism.

No-Daddy Blues

There are a lot of kids who do not grow up with their father like Christopher Gardner. That is a big problem because all over the world children grow without father. In the book this problem is described very well.
For the people it seems not so terrible but most of these children are really sad like Christopher. It starts in the kindergarten. They have to see how other kids are picked up by their mothers and also by their fathers. So they develop the feeling of emptiness really soon because something is missing in their life.
It continues in the next passage of their life. In the elementary school the kids start to play soccer or have similar activities. Normally especially boys, play with their fathers in the garden to practice their abilities. But kids without a father are not able to practice with their father because he does not exist. And often their mother is not interested in such things. When these kids become teens many more of these problems appear. Boys who come in the puberty want to speak with their father about girls or other themes that they can only speak about with a male person. So it is very difficult for the mother to take over the part of the father.

In general fatherlessness becomes more and more one of the essential social problems in America. According statistics a third of children in America live without their father. One of the reasons is the divorce rate, which has increased rapidly in the recent years. After a divorce normally the mother gets the child custody. Lots of toddlers, living just with their mother, are brought up till ground school only by women, because most of the caregivers (nursery) and teachers (ground school) are female. So often the male reference person for the boys and girls does not exist. However, it is possible that the child finds another role model like a near relative or the new partner of its mother. Nevertheless in most cases they cannot completely replace the real father. In the book Uncle Henry was Christopher’s idol in his early childhood.

Most of the scientists have the opinion that it is necessary for the children’s character development to have both a male and a female contact person. A good relationship of trust between children and their parents plays an important role, because the kids need somebody to rely on. They also say that there is a greater risk of kids (living only with one parent) becoming criminal active, consuming drugs, providing poor performance at school ( followed by school dropouts) or getting behavioral disorders.

Larissa & Isabel

The American Dream

The American Dream is the belief to become successful and happy in live. If you are poor or you have a good living standard is not important to become rich. If you have the ambition to become successful in live you can work hard day by day and maybe your dreams come true.

The American Dream are wishes and dreams of different people. The properties are fairness, honesty, hard working, ambition and endurance. The major elements are freedom, competition, independence, equal opportunities and success.

James Truslow Adams used the term American Dream at first in his book “The Epic of America” in year 1931.

The book “The Pursuit of Happyness” shows very good the American Dream. Chris Gardner was born in a poor family and had a bad childhood. He had a bad life, he does not know his father, his wife leave him because of financial problems and he was homeless with his son. From the date he was hired by a stock company his live changed a lot. At this point of live his career started, he got his own company and he became successful and rich because of never giving up in his live and followed his dream to become a stockbroker.

All in all I think the American Dream is a good thought because everyone can life a good live. If you work hard you can be successful and rich. All is possible. The live bring good times along and bad times, but it is important not to give up your live in bad times. You should follow your dreams and do not give up. It gives a saying: “From rags to riches”. Everyone can realize this saying.

Julia and André

Education

For us Education is normal and sometimes boring and irritating but Education is not normal for everybody and many people would be so happy if they could have our Education System.For example in Africa a normal child does not have the possibility to go to school without paying much money. That means they do not have the possibility to become educated and to have a better life than her parents with a job later.Moreover there is a big difference between educations system in Europe or America because if you go to school here you have the possibility to reach every goal if you work hard enough.

 
Education became more and more important in the last years in Germany because our whole life depends on it in our society. If you establish a good graduation, you will have more chances in choosing a job and it is easier to get a place at university. Already at the age of 10 years in Germany the graduation in the elementary schools influences a part of your future life. If you go on a “Gymnasium” you will have the best qualification for a good job and studying at university. At a “Realschule” you have fewer chances and at the “Hauptschule” they are not very good. If you go on a “Gesamtschule” and you work very hard, you can change after the 9th class to the Gymnasium and make your graduation there. This is necessary for some studies at university. That means after four years at the school your future is nearly decided, so your dedication in school defines your success and your job.

In a few countries there is a big difference between private and official schools. That means the education depends on your money. This is for poor families a disadvantage but especially in America it is not regardless how hard they work because in order of the American dream everybody is able to have a career. If you work hard enough you can reach your goals and you can be as good as the others. Here in Germanys exists this chance too.

A few federal states demand on dues for the universities. So it is clever to study in other federal states but therefore they have to leave their home or pay for university. In another way you can say everybody can go to university in Germany if he accepts some cons.
Summarised your success depends on dedication, cleverness and hard work. Unfortunately it also depends on family background and money sometimes but normally everybody has the chance to have a good job neither you go on a private school or a normal school.

Which group of people is able to buy a Ferrari?

First of all you have to be rich if you want to be able to buy a Ferrari. But not only rich, it would cost you round about 300,000€ and that is why you have to be that rich, that you are able to live on your life after spending this high charge. But what kind of people would spend this high charge? In my opinion there are on the one hand the people who are rich because of inheriting money and on the other hand the people, like Chris Gardner, who are rich because of working hard their whole lives.

The people who inherited their money are mostly braggy, detached and full of themselves. But the people who worked their whole lives may be proud of themselves and of what they reached and these are the people who would never be braggy or detached due to they know how it is to be poor. Mostly the inheritors are out of that group which would spend this high cost so that they own something with what they can brag. The members of the other group mostly would not spend such a high cost but in this case Chris Gardner did. But he did not do it to be able to brag, but to show other people what you can reach, if you want to. He really went from rags to riches, it was a hard way for him, but he reached what he dreamed of.

And so with buying the Ferrari he realizes one of his biggest dreams and shows that you are also able to buy a Ferrari when you once have been poor and your life seemed to be viewless. You only have to think big, be optimistic and positive related to your dreams.

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (born 1918) was, and still is, a South African freedom fighter and anti-apartheid* activist, he is part of the ANC (an anti-apartheid movement) and co-founder of the Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed part of this party. Due to his fight against the former regime of South Africa, he spent 26 years of his life behind bars. Mandela became the very first black president of South Africa (from 1994 to 1999) and has received more than 250 awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize (in 1993).

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela was born in Transkei, South Africa on July 18, 1918. His father was Chief Henry Mandela of the Tembu Tribe. Since Mandela was a young boy he dreamt of taking part in the freedom struggle of his people. One of his most famous citations is: “Struggle is my life” (This is also the name of one of his books). After graduating he stared studying Jura at the University College of Fort Hare, but he was banned from school after joining in a student protest. He completed his education through the University of South Africa and went back to Fort Hare for his graduation in 1943.

He joined the African  National Congress, a party which primary goal was to improve the living conditions and rights of black and colored people in South Africa, in 1944, and was engaged in resistance against  the ruling National Party’s apartheid policies after 1948. In the following years the more radical Mandela and other young ANC members were coming to the view that nonviolent demonstrations were not successful. And after the police fired to unarmed demonstrators in Sharpeville in 1961 all peaceful efforts to change conditions came to an end. The policy of the ANC became more and more radical and the Umkhonto we Sizwe was founded.

Due to his leadership of this underground movement (and his general political opinions), Mandela was indicted several times and eventually sentenced to spent the rest of his life in the prison on Robben Island as political prisoner in 1964. Mandela spent the next 26 years of his life behind bars until he was released in 1990 due to political pressure on the white government.

During his years in prison, Nelson Mandela’s reputation grew steadily. He was worldwide accepted as the most important black leader in South Africa and became a symbol of resistance as the anti-apartheid movement gathered strength. He never changed his political opinion to gain his freedom.

After his release he was working on ending the government of the white minority and became South Africa’s first democratically elected President on 10 May 1994.

Since this one term as president, he was, and still is, standing up for peace and human rights.

The situation in South Africa changed a lot even though it is still a long way to go to create a society free of rascism and with equal opprtunities for everyone.

“I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” (Mandela 1964)

Nelson Mandela, in his role as representative of human rights and freedom, and Chris Gardner meet in 2004 due to the third democratical elections of South Africa to which Chris Gardner was invited in order to observe the count. For Chris this meeting means a lot, because Mandela is one of his idols. Both fought their whole lives for their dreams and never gave up even if life was harder than expected.

*Apartheid (definition): A period of time of racial segregation in South Africa, which was settled by the white minority ruling the country during these years. It began in the 20th century and lasted until 1994, when the pressure on the white government forced the politicians to end the apartheid.

Sources:

http://www.notablebiographies.com/Lo-Ma/Mandela-Nelson.html

http://www.exil-club.de/html/30_projekte/32_projekte_02/biografien/mandela/bio.htm

http://www.nelsonmandela.org/content/page/biography

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandela