Hoffman 6-

Many of the government policies we have were designed around the particular number of people in certain socio-economic groups. Over the years, with the current distribution of wealth, there is a much larger lower middle-class than before. We used to have the poor, a big and healthy middle class, and a few very rich. That's not the case anymore. Our systems in place simply do not fit the population.

It was really quite horrible to read more about race and the healthcare system. I think that when we think of segregation and civil rights, we think of separate schools and the right to vote. No one like to talk about when our nation's racism actually kills a human. We look back at lynchings and the KKK like they were these isolated events carried about by evil, uneducated people. But this is not the case of hospitals. The section about how doctors were suspected of intentionally allowing African-American babies to pass is just horrific. I can't imagine that level of ignorance and the lack of basic humanity to kill a baby. I was cringing just thinking about how much deeper the racism we learn about it history class actually goes. The horrifying part is that its happening again with people of certain religions and the growing Latino population in America. It really opened my mind to rethink what I have learned about American's history. I think we all are so ashamed of the horrible things we were capable of and allowed to be the social norm that we try to sweep it under the rug. In another one of my classes, we were talking about African-Americans are one of the only groups not paid reparations for the crimes against them. The native American communities did, but for some reason native slaves were seen as deserving and African-American slaves are not? Needless to say, I was shocked about how much more I saw after reading those examples.