American Dream
CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN SOCIETY - The American Dreamc : DEAD or ALIVE? INTRODUCTION Originally, the 'Dream' was envisaged to be life in a new world where anything successful can happen and good things might (Hochschild, 1996). In 1963, Martin Luther King Jnr said that he too had a dream "that on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood" Video: The Legacy). Since then, many aspects of Martin Luther King's Dream for the American people have come true, but some remain a dream. Today, the notion of the 'American Dream' stretches far beyond the idea of political and religious freedom to a more economically oriented base. The United States has increasingly become a consumer-based society, so the idea of 'success' is now measured by material wealth - a white picket fenced house in the suburbs complete with car, dog and two children. The American Dream is still alive, but only in the minds of those citizens who have the resources to fulfil the definition of success, namely, material wealth. DISCUSSION The US is the most influential country in the world. This is seen not only in monetary strength and business power, but also in the choice of music, clothes and recrea
More recently, opposition to immigration has been rising (Daniels, 1991:400). On the one hand it could be argued that the easy accessibility of guns in America is killing the Dream (especially in the ghettos) as death by gunshot wound is the most common way for young black males to die (Skolnick & Fyfe, 1993:65). Affirmative action was seen as a vehicle for improving the educational and workplace opportunities of minorities, thereby bringing the reality of the American Dream closer to their grasp. While the disadvantaged continue to see others around them moving towards a Dream that they can never hope to achieve themselves, material gain by illegal or violent means continues to be a problem. The system of local government in America perpetuates the disadvantages as taxes raised from local home owners determine the levels of funding for schools and community support centres. He dreamed that his four children would not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. A very real dilemma behind the violence in America is the issue of guns and their control within US society. The concept of the American Dream is sold to every citizen along with the belief in the might and power of the US, patriotism, the American flag and the all-American apple-pie. The dream of the poor Hispanic farmer will be very different from that of the Wall Street banker, to that of the inner city African-American single parent family and, different again from the family in the leafy outer suburbs. Proponents of affirmative action claim the system helps minority students who score less on the all-important SAT's because they have not been able to attend better resourced schools or been able to afford expensive tutors. While the cities tend to be linked to violence, it has been in the rural communities of the US heartland that American terrorism has been born. It may not be easy to go into the core of American society and may not be a desirable thing for many people to do. In cities and towns, affluent areas are mainly white, poor areas black or Hispanic. This is exemplified in the fact that there are over 200 million guns in America with 70 million gun owners and that a disturbingly high one quarter of all households owns a handgun (ibid:15). Not in Watts on this occasion, but through a mainly Korean area of LA, devastating the Dream of many business owners.
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