Homework due 7/12

This article from the New Republic immediately grabbed my attention because of the story's intersection with so many issues: socioeconomic class, race, privilege, corporate America, and the legal system, to name just a few. Any one of those issues could provide a starting point for responding to the article, and give you a platform to express your ideas about what it means to get by (and sometimes get screwed) in America today.

Additionally, there are other sides to this story: What would you say about the bank teller who made the call to police? What about Chase's refusal to issue an apology? What about the police who made the arrest?

Finally, there's author Jonathan Chait's takeaway argument to consider:

"You have to be very smart, hard-working, and/or lucky to move from the bottom to the top, and very dumb, lazy, and/or unlucky to fall out of the upper tier if you've arrived or even been born there."

He uses the story of the man cashing his check as evidence of how economic and social systems are not only stacked against, but even punitive of, certain people (generally poor minorities). This argument speaks to a much bigger conversation about the free market, the role of government in addressing inequality, and whether inequalities even exist in the marketplace due to factors other than any given individual's gumption, skills, motivation, and hard work. This conversation in turn has everything to do with our fundamental views about how society, and America in particular, works, and if it's working the way it should.

Assignment: Read the article linked above (I also handed it out in class). Using the sentence-outline technique, write a paragraph summarizing the article. Then choose one of the following questions. Write a one-paragraph response to the question that expresses your own views. You may use your personal experiences in your response.

• How else can one bad event lead to a cascade of others?
• In what other situations are minorities (e.g. according to race, gender, sexual orientation, or group affiliation) at a disadvantage in public and/or commercial settings?
• Is there anything else we need to know to be able to judge whether the bank teller and the police acted appropriately?
• Is it possible that the man who was arrested was just unlucky?
• Is it harder to make money if you're poor than if you're rich?
• Should Chase take some kind of action in response to this incident? If so, what? If not, why not?

Due: In class, 7/12. Hard copy.