Life, History and Issues Addressed by J.C. Watts - Former Oklahoma Senator - Research Paper Example

J.C WATTS Introduction J.C. Watts was born in a family of six, him being the fifth child in Eufaula, Oklahoma in the year 1957. Eufaula is reported to be a small town in east central of Oklahoma and currently he and his family resides in Norman. During his active time he became a spokesperson for many bodies that comprise of Big Sisters- Big Brothers and YMCA. At one time J.C. watts held the position of Watts Energy Corporation president which is situated next to his area of residence. This paper will therefore put into focus the ideologies that were employed by J.C Watts during the period he served in the congress and even after that time. It will specifically place emphasis on what he did and also the campaign strategy he utilized to pass his messages and issues to his audience. Research Methodology This paper will utilize available secondary resources such journals, government records, information from many authors which in many textbooks regarding the life, history and issues addressed by J.C Watts. It will also utilize previous surveys, interviews and opinions including J.C Watt’s biography available both in the internet, publications and other sources. This kind of methodology will therefore provide the information needed for completion of this research paper Literature Review Many people regard J.C Watts to possess an outstanding personality with good values and critical know-how that has over time shaped his life and personality. According to previous research conducted by other researchers, Watts is a humble person with passion for democracy who treasured the freedom for each and every human being. Watts’ educational background can be traced to year 1957 when he finished his high school education from Eufaula High School in the year 1976 he attended the University of Oklahoma through which in the year 1981 he graduated with a Bachelors of Arts degree in journalism, while in college he developed his interest in joining the sports team where, he was selected to lead the college football team in which he played the quarterback position the team made it to the Big Eight Conferences titles and the Orange Bowl championships that was at then headed by Barry Switzer as their head coach. For this case in the year 1980 and 1981 he quarterbacked the college sooners who emerged as the victors of the Orange Bowl defeating the Florida State Seminoles who were thereafter knocked out of the competition for the national championship this led him to graduate with the MVP honors in the games he played. Previous research has indicate that, Watts had the passion of joining the professional football that is the Canadian Football League where he played for the Ottawa Rough Riders in which he was granted the Gray Cup Award for being the most valuable player, but he went ahead playing the quarterback position that gave him great success in Oklahoma university, watt made the record of beating people such as Warren Moon, Matt Dunigan, Tom Clements and Vince Ferragono among others during his stay in the Canadian Football League he thereafter retired and his position was replaced by Damon Allen who was assigned to play for the eastern Riders. (J.C, Watts 2000) Hypothesis Watt has been found to be an all-round individual in that, after his retirement in the sports career in Canada; he went back to Oklahoma where he later on joined the Southern Baptist church where he worked as the minister and the associate pastor in the Del City Oklahoma between 1987 and 1994. With respect to his political standpoint, we find that he urged to contest for a position on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission which was seen as a continuation from the efforts of the prominent Oklahoma Republicans. In 1990, J.C Watts accepted the advice and contested for an open seat where he emerged as the winner defeating other candidates in the republican ticket, this made him the first African-American to be elected in the state office in Oklahoma A Photograph of J.C Watt In the year 1994 he was again elected to the Oklahoma’s 4th congressional district that was at the time being occupied by Dave Mccurdy as the Congressman, he presented his interest in protecting the black people by his act of declining joining the Congressional Black Caucus since he claimed that it contained democratic liberals whose purpose was to betray the black people in the United States of America. In this case, research indicates that in the year 1997 he was selected to deliver the republican response to the president Bill Clinton’s State of the Union Address, in the same year he was found inspiring controversy as he termed some black democrats and the leaders of the Civil Rights as race hustling poverty pimps whereby he stated that their occupation relied on the government. The Republican House Leadership thereafter selected him to be the chairman of the House Republican Conference where he occupied the position that is always considered as the fourth highest position of leadership in the House of Representatives. According to law this election indicated that he was to serve for two years only as from the year 2000 to the year 2002. Watt preferred to stay home with his family in the year 2002 and was made the chairman of the GOPAC thereafter in the year 2007 he was succeeded by the former Lt, Governor Michael S. Steel (J.C, Watts 2000) With respect to his degree in journalism, there is evidence that he had also engaged himself with writing a monthly column for the existing sporting news and also as a political commentator on a number of national organized political talk shows which included the Tavis Smiley Show, Meet the Press, among other talk shows. In his journalistic career, we find that he has written a number of column an example of the columns is the one that was headed “Does GOP care about the black vote?” in this column, Watts discusses on the issues of presidential campaigns in the country through which he claims that the Republican has come up with an idea of bringing up an alternative for the black communities in the country. As the course of this establishment watt claims that the black community do not have the interest of supporting the move since they have no trust built on the GOP. The need for dependency makes the people in the Oklahoma community to be looking upon the media to be given information about the events taking place globally, so they have to tolerate the messages by the media so as they get the information about a particular event taking place. In this case we find that the people read, listen and interpret the message depending on their socio-economic class, gender, age, education and their ethnic backgrounds, in this manner we find that they are influenced by the media to carry out a particular action or even to copy the concepts of life shown in the message that is put across to them through advertisements. With these findings, it is evident that there is always some disinformation about the ethnic group whereby this practice is not only practiced by the business owners, but it is also used by various political leaders and the government, who influence the media organizations to disseminate certain information that is meant to undermine the African American community and their leaders in the government and through this, I find that many people are led to take an action depending on the message given to them by the media who are surely, aware that the information included in the advertisement is not true. (J.C, Watts 2000) Watts is believed to have represented a district whose population carries sixty nine percent democrats and eighty seven percent whites; this clearly tells us that Watt was not elected on the basis of racism. He therefore brought in the idea of affirmative action which he believed that it always transcended race in any community, he claims this action has not been used to consider the disadvantaged individuals in the community in this case we find that so many questions have been raised about the rights of an individual, where equality is considered to be the major topic to be addressed. Since it has been argued that not all people in our society are given the same opportunities, where minorities have been shattered and ignored. Therefore we find that there have been major arguments that an Affirmative Action which was mainly brought up with an objective of ensuring equality for the oppressed people in the society. Though the Action has not been addressed in many nations, many people claim that the action would affect our society with a positive intention. Though many say that, the action has created inequality in its implementation among the society, Watts indicated that the action plays a major role in creating awareness to the society the importance of accepting their cultural differences by trying to compensate the past discrimination activities. (J.C, Watts 2000) Apart from J.C Watts, there are other people who were historically involved in the implementation of the affirmative action and they included the former President of America John F. Kennedy who was said to have been reinforcing the enabling of the Affirmative Action in our American society, whereby after he was killed president Lyndon Johnson took over and continued with the enabling of the Affirmation Action, whereby it is evidenced that in the year 1965, he signed an executive order numbered 11246 which provided him with the guarantee that equality will be enhanced both in the employment and educational institutions. The action has been said to have placed a major role in our society in the past and to the recent years, under this, we find that the minorities are said to be disadvantaged by the segregation in the distribution of income and consumption within the American community where the share of the national income shows that there is inequality between the blacks and other ethnic groups in the society, where the blacks are said to have a significantly lower share of national income than other ethnic groups (J.C, Watts 2000). Due to this, Watts therefore deduce that to eradicate poverty in the society, Watts believes that the private sector programs should be put into consideration in order to eliminate poverty he says that a lot of revenue is lost through the tax credits and the capital gains tax this is found to be enhancing poverty in many communities since many minorities claim to be lacking capital to put up their own business since they got the ideas on how to carry out the business. (Karl, 1997) According to the secondary research that has been conducted in the past, there are many issues that seriously need to be addressed including education, racism, affirmative action, health and democracy all of which have been pointed out by J.C. Watts. It has also been found out that, teachers in many schools are said to be practicing discipline on students depending on the race, gender and socio-economic factors, though many people including teachers, argue that the discipline and policy practices in schools are balanced and objective, there are still main causes that lead to an increase in the number of students of color being send out of school. (Karl, 1997) Watts puts it clearly, that racism has caused major effects on various sectors in our society this include the cultural insensitivity and misunderstanding in many learning institution; this has been said to be the major factor leading to crisis in discipline systems both in students and the teaching staff that is believed to be leading to the distinction between racial and ethnic groups among students. Due to the growing urban population in Oklahoma, many suburban schools are growing, thus increasing the racial and language differences. (J.C, Watts 2000) On the contrary, the number of teachers decreases as a result of color and social differences in which it is found that many school administrators employ teachers depending on the number of the color students, this has probably led to a cultural variance through which a number of teachers lack knowledge with the cultural values, and belief systems of the particular students. Therefore due to lack of the teachers’ familiarity with the students’ cultural perspectives the teacher is not able to understand the behavior of a particular student. (Chideya, 1995) . Many people come up with ideas claiming that, the gap dividing the poor and the rich is getting wider, as the process of development brings prosperity for some but further marginalizes the poor, it is found that the cases on urban insecurity, violence and environmental deterioration are going up and up, while the breakdown of neighborhoods, communities and families is eroding the social fabric which makes various cities decent places to live. We find that, the poor African Americans work under the irregularities of low levels of income, the casual and temporary nature of labor arrangements; they also lack access to social insurance schemes and also, information on such schemes. They carry out work for an employer, a subcontractor or agents in exchange for remuneration, therefore having no employee-employer relations that are similar to those individuals who are waged and salaried, though, labor laws have been silent about the labor rights of these people arguing that they are self employed workers, thus excluding them from labor protection in the area. (J.C, Watts 2000) Cases of isolation of the poor among the ethnic groups in the Oklahoma area and other parts of the country, whereby, they are largely unaware of their rights, which becomes even more difficult to organize and also, they have no power to negotiate with the employers or their bosses, this has led to many people who are poor to give up on their works and prefer staying back in their quarters, thus making the poor members to remain poor due to lack of finances to cater for their needs. J.C Watts therefore clarifies that, these problems are always seen to be occurring on a daily basis as a result of the non-involvement of the poor African Americans in decision building. In essence, there are no solutions that work for the minorities and that if there were, communities would already be using them. The main externally propagated alternatives are not providing the kind of solutions that were anticipated. He argued that the development interventions which sought to deal with a single issue, no matter how well designed, they have not been able to deal with the reality that human beings have needs that are multi-faceted and interconnected needs, which can be resolved in discrete bits. Although very few resources get allocated to the problems affecting the poor African Americans, they get withdrawn when the poor people fail to participate in change processes which either scare them away or seem useless. (Ainsworth & Douglas, 1998) According to Watts, we can count on cities expanding rapidly in the new millennium and also we can count on the increase in the number of the African American in the cities of America, Therefore, there are many questions on how to shake off this tradition which excludes the poor from participating in the exploration and testing of solutions which affects their own lives. And how to help these poor African American communities to replace the isolation of despair with the kind of solidarity and stamina they need to work towards such solutions this discussion presents a way forward to have poor people given a chance to participate in decision making for their development. (Couldry and Curran, 2003) Though it is hard to define a living process with so much experimentation on racial or ethnic discrimination and so many flavors, many people come up with ideas claiming that, the gap dividing the poor and the rich is getting wider, as the process of development brings prosperity for some but further marginalizes the poor thus increasing the cases of poverty among the African Americans in Oklahoma, it is found that the cases on urban insecurity, violence and environmental deterioration are going up and up, while the breakdown of neighborhoods, communities and families is eroding the social fabric which makes various cities decent places to live. This case is seen as a major mess to the people living in the Oklahoma area in America. Therefore, he recommends that the governments should empower the poor African American community by improving the internal governance structures, finance management systems, skills knowledge and abilities. Promote linkages, learning and dialogue between the poor and support the formation of umbrella groups that can effectively negotiate member interests with outside activists. Support the participation of the poor particularly the blacks, in all governance and policy formulation mechanisms both in local government and the administration; this would include schools and health committees. (Ainsworth & Douglas, 1998) Promote an active culture that emphasizes the right to formation and support the developmental activists to demand information from all sectors including government, other Non-Governmental organisations in order to promote local accountability to the minorities. The government should create an enabling environment which will influence change in policies, laws and institutions at national and international levels that is representative and protective of the interests of the poor and marginalized people including the blacks. Campaign strategy used by J.C WATTS J.C WATTS utilized public lectures as a strategy to meet its audiences and the crowds. He particularly chose university grounds and social halls where he believed he would get some people who could see beyond normal social order and norms. He has been in many occasions also got interviewed by both electronic and print media/press for his comments and explanations on the issues he has publicly brought up. “What do you want America to be when you grow up?” has been one of the statements J.C is frequent quoted as one of the questions he had asked his audiences during a lecture he gave at Dorothy Dickson Carte Centre. Apart from lectures, he also appeared in public forums such as public debates, talk shows, radio and T.V stations to argue out his case. When he was a congress man, he spent most of his time giving detailed explanation of the issues he was advocating for to his colleagues both in the senate and outside the House. Anybody who worked with J.C Watts can tell you that all his conversations centered on issues of equality, social order, justice and democracy. Another form of strategy utilized by the former senator to meet his audience was the fact, he exploited at least every opportunity he got to sell out his polices and what he believed in to all his audience. He also made trips to various countries to pass his message to the people whom he believed would help him voice the concerns to the crop of leaders in the U.S at that moment. Conclusion J.C Watts was a very dedicated gentleman who placed the interest of other people at heart before he placed his own. He also brought out serous issues that many leaders believed would help the American nation fight all manner of vices including racism, poverty and insecurity. He outlined the government’s role in ensuring that commitment to equal rights and opportunities are upheld and delivered, by setting an enabling environment for gender and racial equality at the country level and in the global community through the formulation and implementation of conferences and international conformities. Therefore, I recommend that the governments should empower the poor African American community by improving the internal governance structures, finance management systems, skills knowledge and abilities. Promote linkages, learning and dialogue between the poor and support the formation of umbrella groups that can effectively negotiate member interests with outside activists. Support the participation of the poor particularly women, in all governance and policy formulation mechanisms both in local government and the administration, this would include schools and health committees. I also recommend that the empowerment of women needs to be supported by the government which must play a strategic role in recognizing the gender problems, whereby it takes part in addressing issues of global regulations and equity. The government is obligated to work with the private sectors in Oklahoma so as to improve the labor and trading standards and also to strengthen the social responsibility thus promoting the progress towards gender equality. There is need promote an active culture that emphasizes the right to formation and support the developmental activists to demand information from all sectors including government, other Non-Governmental organisations in order to promote local accountability to the poor members of the society. The government should create an enabling environment which will influence change in policies, laws and institutions at national and international levels that is representative and protective of the interests of the poor and marginalized people not depending on their race. Read More