The American Dream: Dead, Alive Or On Hold, By Brandon King

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In Brandon King’s 2011 book excerpt “The American Dream: Dead, Alive, or on Hold?”, he redefines the American Dream as “the potential to work for an honest, secure way of life and save for the future” (611). I would disagree with King’s beliefs, I think his definition is wrong as well as him saying that the dream is alive. When I hear the words ‘American Dream’ I think of the definition that dictionary.com gives stating, “the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative.” In this sense I think the American Dream is dead, predominantly because there is no equality when it comes to United States citizens. There is no equality when it comes to the …show more content…

Political battles of today fought with arguments based on the speeches of writings of men dead over a century ago.” Gathering this quote, I am guessing that Clark shares the same beliefs about the government as I do. Present day there are so many corrupt individuals running our government who listen to these teachings. All these people in power currently are white, upper class, privileged men who only want to better themselves. It seems as though nobody wants to do anything to give the lesser privileged people the same opportunities as the upper class. America was built off the idea that everyone is to be treated equal, but clearly that is not the case. Our nation is supposedly the land of the free, which is why all immigrants fled here for this free land of endless opportunities, now our government officials don’t even want immigrants entering. In the past powerful people forced less privileged individuals into slavery so that they could not advance. Nowadays, people of power force its people to live in bad neighborhoods and have a lower education with a lack of opportunities. While on the other hand, the upper class praise other upper-class citizens as well as providing them with all the opportunities and a surplus of advantages that are not needed. These men in power maintain these mindsets full of hate and evil which result in nothing changing or improving for their citizens. These outdated ideas proposed by dead white racist men are now enforced by alive white racist

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