American Idealism Essay

Even though soldiers are heroes and many people feel superior to minorities, I believe that black people and women should be treated with respect because for too long black people and women have been treated as beneath other people and American soldiers have been treated like heroes when most of them are scared to be fighting. American Idealism forms the way we think something should be and how we perceive it. However, the idealism of American thought is not always correct. As individuals, we should strive to come up with our own opinions and thoughts on what is right for us and not is thought to be right by many. In the past, we perceived our views about war, on the treatment of blacks and the treatment of women should be. We are taught that

Many privileged people in America were still looking down at the black people and many young black poets writing reflects this. Langston Hughes “Let America Be America again”, tells us of the way the blacks wanted to be treated and how they were promised their America when the civil war ended and they were no longer slaves. In the poem the lines 31-35 speak of how black were still being treated, “I am the farmer, the bondsman to the soil, I am the worker sold to the machine. I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-Hungry yet today despite the dream”. (Hughes) This speaks of how the black person felt they were still being treated and how they were continually being treated specially during the Civil Rights Movement of the 60’s. Unfortunately, today black people are not treated much better and still have to face prejudice. There is a parallel how the blacks were viewed as subservient, much like the soldiers were in Catch-22. Blacks and the soldiers were both told what to do and did not have the freedom to go wherever they wanted to without fear of punishment. When the blacks were slaves, they were treated as runaway slaves if they left without permission and they were whipped for leaving. The soldiers who went AWOL were court marshaled. The treatment of blacks still needs to improve and maybe one day this will not be an