defining the american dream essay example

1. Woratee Promlikhitkul
Dr. Dana Nichols
Writing 100
Challenging the American Dream
The idea of the American dream is the very ideal life style of the citizens of the
United States. It can be defined via a lot of methods depending on the different views of
each individuals. However, in general, the ideal life for people, not just in the United States
but all around the world, would consist of equality and freedom. Equality means that every
individuals should be treated the same way, abided by the same law, and be respected as
civilized people. Freedom means that people should not be oppressed and have the
abilities to express themselves. Though seems to be very idealistic, people should strive to
achieve this dream and create the better society that everyone can inhabit. Many efforts
have been made to ensure the steps toward achieving this dream. Looking at the history of
the United States, one can clearly see that the nation has been through a lot of arising
topics involving the human rights and therefore, the definition of the American dream has
been challenged many and many times. Would the American dream be true to everybody if
some groups of people are still treated unjustly? By looking at some of the essays and
speeches of important history figures, one can see that the problem always arise with the
attitude that rights should be given to only some groups of people, not the whole citizens.
“All men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.
Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” (391-392). These words were
expressed in the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration of
Independence, which is like the core of human rights in the United States and was used as
the model for the making of many laws that abide the citizens, was somehow ignored when
it comes to the rights of people with lower status, at the time, such as women and black
people. In practice, the laws are made by only one group of people and those laws are
normally made to justify the rights and provide protections to the kind of people who
enacted them while ignoring or refusing to offer the same set of rights to other groups who
have to obey the same laws. “Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups
seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and
voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups
tend to be more immoral than individuals” (432-433) expressed by Martin Luther King in his
“Letter from Birmingham Jail” clearly states the cause of the problem that people had to
face before they achieved victory in their actions and were given the same rights. This
attitude that rights should only be given to a group of people, not the whole citizens, is what

2. creates tension and conflict between people in the same society. It creates dissatisfaction
in the people who are ripped of their natural “inalienable” rights. Different groups of people
had to face with different challenges from the society before they finally get the equal rights
with the dominant group.
The first problem arose at the very beginning moment of discovering America. The white
men encountered the native people who they called the “savages” (Standing Bear 101).
This is because they used literacy to define people. The white men considered themselves
superior because they could write. They did not fully understand the native people and the
land that they lived in because they were judging things by their own standard and claimed
that their acts were “the result of divine will” (Standing Bear 100). “Tyranny, stupidity, and
lack of vision have brought about the situation now alluded to as the “Indian Problem””
(Standing Bear 100).
Up until the 20​th​ century, women did not have the right to vote. They did not even have the
right over their own property. Susan B. Anthony has clearly discussed this in her speech
about the “Women’s right to vote.”
The women, dissatisfied as they are with this form of government, that enforces taxation
representation – that compels them to obey laws to which they never have given their
consent – that imprisons and hangs them without a trial by a jury of their peers – that robs
them, in marriage, of the custody of their own persons, wages, and children – are this half of
the people who are left wholly at the mercy of the other half… It is downright mockery to talk
to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the only means
of securing them provided by this democratic republican government – the ballot. (411-412)
Anthony clearly believed that the “inalienable rights” were not given to everyone, not even to
all white people. Though women were given some rights as citizens, they were not given
the most important right of all, the right to vote. Only the white male citizens would have the
chance to participate in enacting law that governed the life of all people. By not possessing
the same set of rights, women could not fully say that they had “the blessing of liberty.”
The similar view is shared by Frederick Douglass when he gave a speech on the
Independence Day at Rochester. Douglass clearly expressed that while the “Americans”
are celebrating “the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice” (405), these
privileges were not given to everyone who deserves them.
But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I
am not included in within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence

3. only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day,
rejoice are not enjoyed in common. (405)
And that slavery is against the moral sense of human and every individuals should know
that.
What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work
them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat
them with sticks, to flay their flesh with lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with
dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their
flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? (408)
In later years, the African-American still suffered from discrimination. They were not treated
as equal with white people. Martin Luther King has discussed the actions that were
practiced against the African-American in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown
your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick,
and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty
million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent
society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you
seek to explain your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park
that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is
told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority
beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by
developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people… (433)
King clearly described the discrimination of people in the United States even in the 20​th
century. White people did not think of African-American as equals. Though they have
granted some rights over the African-American, most of them still denied the idea the idea
that African-Americans are their equals and refused to give them the same rights that white
people have.
The consequence of this idea would lead to actions by the activists. People who feel that
they are not treated justly would stand up to the oppression even though the actions bring
hardship or even loss of one’s life. The early Christians were willing to face hungry lions
and the chopping blocks rather than follow the unjust laws of the Roman Empire (King 435).
In the more modern times, people who acted against this kind of oppression would be
charged with a crime against the nation or would face arrest as Susan Anthony and Martin
Luther King did respectively. These activists were willing to face all the adversities because

4. they believe that what is right in the view of the dominate group who creates the law may
not be true justice that people deserve. King expressed that, “I submit that an individual
who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty
of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice is in
reality expressing the highest respect for law” (435). He believed that something that is legal
might not be just and something that is illegal may be just in the conscience of the
community.
After considering all of these speeches and essays, one can clearly deduce that it is the
idea that the whole rights should be possessed by a group of dominant people and not the
whole citizen. All the situations that arose followed the same pattern. A group of people is
not treated as equals with another group. Conflict started among the whole people. The
group that was not given the rights had to struggle to achieve them. This idea has cause a
lot of problems in the past that clearly challenge the American dream. If the definition of the
American dream is equality among people, how can this nation ever live its dream when
people are still divided?

5. Works Cited
Anthony, Susan B. ​Creating America. ​Ed. Joyce Moser and Ann Watters. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, 2005. 410—416. Print.
Douglass, Frederick. “Independence Day Speech at Rochester.” ​Creating America.
Ed. Joyce Moser and Ann Watters. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Education, 2005. 405-409. Print.
Jefferson, Thomas. “The Declaration of Independence.” ​Creating America. ​Ed. Joyce
Moser and Ann Watters. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, 2005.
391—395. Print.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” ​Creating America. ​Ed. Joyce
Moser and Ann Watters. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, 2005.
428—443. Print.
Standing Bear, Luther. “What the Indian Means to America.” ​Creating America. ​Ed.
Joyce Moser and Ann Watters. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education,
2005. 129-133. Print.