Download SOCIAL PROBLEM

Unit10: Social Problems
in the United States
 Sections
 Ⅰ. Racial Problems
 Ⅱ. Poverty
 Ⅲ. Drug Abuse
 Ⅳ. Crime
 Ⅴ. the abuse of power
 Focal points
 1.Racial problems
 2.Inequality in American society
 3.Discrimination against blacks
 4.The black "underclass"
 5.Poverty as a social problem
 6.Drug abuse
 7.Social costs of drug abuse
 8.Crime
 9.The profile of a typical criminal
 10.Racial prejudice in the high rate of
arrests
 11.White-collar crime
 12.The abuse of power by government
 13.The abuse of power by corporations
Racial problems
 Racial problems
..................................................................................
 1. Existence of racial and ethnic subcultures
 2.American society is a stratified one
refugees
adventurers
captives
 Americans are
primarily a nation of
immigrants, who or
whose ancestors
came from many
parts of the globe.
 1.some as refugees from religious and
political persecution.
 2.some as adventurers from the Old World
seeking a better life.
 3.some as captives brought to America
against their own will to be sold into slavery.
有一些则是被抓获后违背他们的意愿运到美国,被出卖为奴隶。
The slave trade routes
American culture
- Common -
Subcultures
- Different -
racial conflicts
social problem
 Though people all share a common
American culture, the nation contains many
racial and ethnic subcultures with their own
distinctive characteristics.
 These differences have contributed to racial
conflicts that have been a persistent social
problem to American society.
 The U.S. was founded on the principle of
human equality, but in practice American
society is a stratified one, in which power,
wealth, and prestige are unequally
distributed among the population. It is
divided into social classes that have varying
degrees of access to the reward the society
offers.
 For example, the richest fifth of American
individuals and families owns more than
three-quarters of the wealth in the U.S.,
whereas the lowest fifth owns only 0.2% of the
wealth. The richest fifth of American families
receives over 40% of the national income,
whereas the poorest fifth receives only 5.2%.
Racial Problems
 discrimination against blacks
 In American society, any group other than
the dominant white Anglo-Saxon Protestant
majority is a minority group. The largest of
the racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S.
is the blacks who make up about 11.7% of
the population. The myth of their racial
inferiority was propagated as a justification
for their continued subjugation 征服,镇压.
 The Northern states had all outlawed
slavery by 1830, but in the Southern states,
it was ended by the Civil War Lincoln’s
emancipation of slaves in 1863. and the 13th
Amendment to the Constitution in 1865.
 But after the abolition of slavery, many
states passed segregation laws to keep the
races apart in schools, housing,
restaurants and public facilities, and
institutionalized discrimination kept
blacks in the lowest-paid jobs.
Dr. Martin Luther King
 After 1960s, many American blacks began
to have a new mood:
(1) Blacks felt that the black community
ought to coexist with other groups.
(2) Blacks felt that “black is beautiful”.
(3) Blacks felt more and more proud of
themselves.
Black pride
这是一名黑人妇女在华盛顿职业介绍会上收集工作介绍材料。
这是2005年6月10日，一名无家可归的黑人男子在美国东南部
的迈阿密南海滩钻进塑料袋里躲避飓风袭击。
2005年，10月13日，美联社公布的图片显示，美国
警察当街殴打黑人嫌犯
这是2004年10月17日，一名黑人妇女手持印有马丁·路德·金头像的标语牌
参加集会。当天，上千名美国工人在首都华盛顿的林肯纪念堂前举行集会
，要求增加工人就业机会、提高医疗保健水平。
这是2005年10月8日，在美国路易斯安那州新奥尔良市波旁大
街的一家酒吧外，几名白人警察正在殴打一名老年黑人男子。
 the black “underclass”
 The majority of the blacks today have failed
to share in the general gains of progress
made recently. The urban ghettos now
contain a permanently impoverished
“underclass” of habitually unemployed or
underemployed black people.
2004年7月2日，无家可归的黑人躺在美国纽约的街头。
 Many of them are young and unskilled. They
live in cities where the unemployment rate
for teenage black workers runs as high as
50% or about 8 times the rate for the
American work force as a whole. This
“underclass” could continue to persist, even
in the absence of racial discrimination, in
much the same way as other pockets of
poverty persist—that is, for reasons of socialclass inequality．
 Living in an environment of poverty,
decay, crime, drug addiction, joblessness,
and hopelessness, this ghetto underclass
offers an explosive potential for the
future.
Poverty
America is a developed country with hightech industries as well as professionals.
Despite its celebrated affluence ,social services
in the united states compare unfavorably with
those in most industrialized societies.
Poverty as a social problem
 The U.S is one of the most wealthy
countries in the world. Yet over 24 million
people or about 10% of the population are
living at or below the official poverty line,
on incomes that the federal government
considers insufficient to meet basic
requirement of food, clothing, and shelter.
 There are millions more,
living slightly above the
poverty line, whose plight
is not much better.
 Furthermore, the affluent majority seems
indifferent to the problems of the poor. This
raises some serious moral problems and
inevitably creates fierce conflicts of interest
and many political controversies.
Therefore, poverty in the U.S becomes a
social problem.
Drug Abuse
 Drug abuse in the U.S. has come to be
regarded as one of the most challenging
social problems facing the nation. The drug
issue always excites strong emotions of
Americans because drug abuse is perceived
as a major threat to American society,
particularly to its younger members.
 Drug abuse is a social problem because it
has a wide range of social costs. For
example,
⑴drug is closely related with crime,
automobile accidents.
⑵It has serious effects on individuals
physically and mentally.
⑶and the economic losses caused by drug
abuse are great.
Drug Abuse in the United States
Drug abuse in the United States
Trainspotting

 The movie tells about a
crowd of young men live
with a large number of
drugs.
 It is a very realistic and
significant movie.
It is a very realistic
and significant
movie.
I chose not to choose life. I chose something' else.
And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs
reasons when you've got heroin? (我选择不要生活，我选择其他。理
由呢？没有理由。只要有海洛因，还要什么理由？” )
Crime
 The profile of a typical
criminal
 According to the reports
given by the FBI, those
arrested for crimes are
disproportionately likely to
be ⑴male, ⑵young, ⑶a
member of a racial minority,
⑷and a city resident.
 Reasons:
 1. poor or unemployed
 2. racial prejudice (the discrimination
between blank and white).
 3. undereducated
 4.selective law enforcement.
Violent crime
 It has reached alarming proportion in U.S.
 61%of all women feel unsafe in their own
neighborhoods in night
 45%of the population is afraid to walk alone
at night near their won homes.
 47% own gun ,largely for self-protection.
美国是枪支开放的典型，普通市民都可以买到枪支。图为一名
美国女孩正在把玩她的新手枪。
Young people crimes
 For example, more blacks are arrested for
crime than white people because a higher
proportion of the black population is poor
or unemployed and there are high
correlations between poverty and the types
of crime classified by the FBI as most
serious.
 Also, racial discrimination in the

enforcement of law causes more arrests of
racial minority people. But if the whitecollar crimes are included and if the
authorities are more vigorous in their
enforcement, the profile of a typical
criminal would be
⑴older, ⑵wealthier, ⑶whiter and ⑷more
suburban than suggested by the FBI.
 white-collar crimes
 White-collar crimes are those committed

by higher income groups such as the
crimes of
⑴fraud欺诈, ⑵false advertising假广告, ⑶
corporate price fixing控制市场价格, ⑷bribery行
贿, ⑸embezzlement挪用公款, ⑹industrial
pollution, ⑺tax evasion偷税漏税and so on.
 Yet the statistics provided by the FBI tend
to overlook white-collar crimes. In fact,
white-collar crimes are often ignored by
law enforcement agencies. Some
sociologists argue that the higher classes
may actually have a higher rate of crime
than the lower classes.
 Former President Nixon
said that crime is
America’s “number one
enemy”. In 1970s, he
was involved in the
Watergate scandal, for
which he was forced to
resign from the
presidency.
the abuse of power
 the abuse of power by
government
 People believe that public
organizations in the U.S.
sometimes work in concert to
advance their own interests
rather than those of the
people. Government in
America is widely distrusted
for the lack of answerability.
 Americans were convinced that the Johnson
and Nixon administrations were deliberately
and systematically lying to the people in the
war against Vietnam and in the Watergate
scandal.
 The FBI and the CIA are responsible for
thousands of illegal acts. All these acts show
the abuse of power by government.
the abuse of power
 Two of the illegal acts by the FBI
 ⑴many
burglaries of presumed critics of the
administration多次非法窃入被认为是批评政府的人员家中
and ⑵widespread illegal wiretapping. 广泛地、非
法地使用窃听器。
 The CIA infiltrated the civil rights and anti-
war movements and compiled dossiers['dɔsiei]
on many Americans. 美国中央情报局渗透到民权和反战运
动中，给数以千计的美国人私立档案。
 The CIA had tested variety of drugs,
including LSD, on many people who were
unaware that they were being used as
guinea[‘gini] pig, and had caused several
deaths in the process. CIA.
还在许多人身上进行各种实验，包括实验可使脑神经紊乱的麻醉药
LSD, 被试验的人自己完全不知道他们被当成试验品。在实验过程
中发生了几起死亡事件。
The FBI headquarter in Washington D.C.
The CIA headquarter in Maryland
 the abuse of power by corporations
 The abuse of power by corporations is
shown in the fact that these corporations
are concerned with their own profits than
with social responsibility, the quality or
price of their products, or the truth of their
advertising.
 They maintain professional lobbyists in
Washington to ⑴influence public officials
behind the scenes. ⑵argue for legislation to
serve their own ends, ⑶influence the
appointment of officials, ⑷block reforms
they consider undesirable, ⑸ and often seem
to have more say in the councils of
government than the ordinary voter.
 Many Americans believe
that “big business” has
taken the reins of
government away from
Congress and the
Administration”, and that
“government is run by a
few big interest groups
looking after themselves.”
Goodbye