Our Democracy

We live in a Democratic Society where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer because majority rules. Many of the things that occur in the United States are unfair to the "minorities" or "minority groups" due to not having a voice and been outnumbered because majority overcomes anything which causes inequality among communities. Individuals and groups of people have been silenced in both politics and personal lives, finding ourselves become dominated by other people. For that reason, we need to speak up and demand to be heard since we have many options for how we can react to this kind of unfair balance of power. Furthermore, the authors Guinier and Hooks emphasize what people can do when presented with unfair situations.

In "The Tyranny of the Majority," Lani Guinier analyzes how American democracy is not always a fair form of government since people will cheat and discriminate to have their way. Guinier explains how when she was a child, she was proud of being a Brownie especially of what her uniform represented which was commitment to good citizenship and good deeds, but saw how easily a mother of a Brownie in a contest cheated to have her son win first place in the hatmaking contest. Moreover, Guinier explains how uniforms are only as honorable as the people who wear them (467). She realized that anyone can have a uniform and will not mean that the individual wearing the uniform is an honest and admirable person who deserves been glorify when the individual only lies, cheats, or steals. At that time she could not do anything because of age, but she resigned at that time and will take action next time she sees such a thing in the future. This proves that people are not honest and use their power to win and let everyone else lose just because they are "better" and have some contest rigged for the sake of seeing an individual win only because people like them, and have the real winner never know about their achievement.

If in a game or any activity that requires a winner and is determined by the majority of votes, then the game is unfair. According to Guinier, "we construct rules that force us to be divided into winners and losers when we might have otherwise joined together" (468). She got that idea from her son Nikolas when he was only four years old. They were analyzing a game in a magazine where it stated to determine who the winner was if four children raised their hand to play tag and two to play hide-and-seek. It clearly states in the magazine that people that have the most hands raised for either tag or hide-and-seek will play that game and be considered the winner. Her son replied, they will play both, first tag and then hide-and-seek. It made sense to her since children love taking turns. According to Guinier, "It was a positive-sum solution that many adult rule makers ignore, but the conventional answer relies on winner take all majority rule." Furthermore, the majority that rules gains all the power and the minority that loses gets none. For example, in the reading Guinier explains about a high school in Chicago that held two senior proms. It was not planned that way, but it had to be done since in the high school whites are the dominant race and they chose their particular