# data[].attributes.body
The blindspot that I have chosen is American Corruption, particularly with a focus in politics and major corporations.

# data[].attributes.body
I want to explore American Corruption as a whole because I think it is more important than ever, that everyone be informed about all kinds of corruption that occurs in this country. It’s a very broad topic on surface level but I want to break it down to examples within the education system, within our political system and government, and also there is a lot of corruption that has occurred within this past year with the pandemic, and I want to explore that as well. There is definitely an inspiration that made me think a lot deeper about this certain topic and it comes from my favorite mixtape of all time, Amerikkkan Korruption, by Capital Steez. At the time of its original release in 2012, I was not as aware of how much widespread corruption there is within this country, and a lot of that has to do with our education system. But over the years since this mixtape has come out, I’ve done my own research from time to time, and I have absolutely become more aware of just how much corruption there really is in America. Now a lot of it has to do with the straight-line instinct and that is why I chose Rosling as one of my sources. I am still undecided on what medium I want to do, so I am going to take my time to make sure I choose the right one.

# data[].attributes.body
Corruption in America comes in all forms. Whether it has to do with the government(federal or state), our education system, or everyday life, it is often hidden from public view and swept under the rug. It is extremely important that everyone be aware of how much corruption there really is and how it has to do with everyone, and it doesn’t just pertain to one race, gender, or religion.

# data[].attributes.body
"All problems have a single cause, something we must always be completely against. Or all problems have a single solution, something we must always be for. Everything is simple. There’s just one small issue. We completely misunderstand the world. I call this preference for single causes and single solutions the single perspective instinct." As a country, we have grown further and further apart. And for every issue that we ALL face collectively as a country, everyone always just wants to point fingers at the other side and blame it on someone else than themselves. Whether it has to do with police brutality, LBGTQ rights, policies in our governments (both federal and state), gun control, education reform or whenever there is an issue, we continuously point to the other side. This is a major problem and it is the majority of the reason why nothing ever really changes. If you're constantly looking for someone to blame, that's less time you're looking for the solution to the problem in the first place. The way that this connects to corruption is that this is a way to keep people divided and basically hating each other. As long as the media, and politicians can keep pushing the agenda of blaming the other side, we as the consumers of all this will never be able to see past that and look for the solution. It happens all the time, whether it's CNN making Fox News look bad or vice versa. When trump was in office, he constantly talked about how awful the democrats were and what they did to piss him off. And that all gets broadcasted to us, the American People, and when we see things like that, we too want to look for someone to blame. And so when the media and politicians are doing this, they are distracting us from the fact that they don't have a solution to whatever problem is being talked about. I can remember just this past winter, when Texas had all that horrible weather and people were put out of their homes, CNN news anchor, Anderson Cooper, brought a woman on his show to talk about what Ted Cruz was doing in Mexico. This baffled me. Instead of asking her how she was doing and asking if her family was safe, Anderson just wanted to feed his ego and feed the ego of CNN (a primarily democratic news outlet), by asking this woman what she thought of Ted Cruz(republican senator from Texas), and his little getaway trip to Mexico during the weather crisis in Texas. I couldn't believe he had the nerve to do that. Instead of making sure that she was okay, Anderson would rather just feed the ego of CNN and himself all because Ted Cruz is a republican. What does it matter what Ted Cruz was doing anyway. He's not going to stop the weather. He can't just make a visit to Mother Nature and be like "leave Texas alone please". So it's examples like this that further divide everyone instead of bringing more people together. We don't need division, we need unity. So this is definitely an issue that branches of the tree of American corruption.

# data[].attributes.body
I found a video clip on Youtube, that gives a short explanation of Bloomberg's history and stance on the “stop and frisk” rule in NYC and the authority it gives NYPD officers. Basically, they go to lower income/suspected of crime neighborhoods, and they stop whoever they feel is carrying any kind of narcotic or weapons, and they stop them, and pat them down. Now it doesn’t seem too bad on surface level, but when you take in account that on average, over 90% of those who were stopped, were people of color, and on average of that statistic, almost 60% of those were innocent, it becomes an issue. Now Bloomberg has come out numerous times saying it is not racially motivated, but the majority of those who are stopped are black and brown people, but they make up the minority of the population. So, there is cause for concern as to why so many people of color are being stopped when, they make up less of the population, and the majority of people of color who are stopped, are innocent.

# data[].attributes.headline
Kamala Harris and her time in California.

# data[].attributes.subject
Kamala Harris and her time in California.

# data[].attributes.body
This source basically just goes in depth about a lot of the corruption that Kamala Harris has been apart of during her tenure as District Attorney of San Francisco, and then her tenure as Attorney General of California. She swept a lot of issues under the rug because she knew they would conflict with her campaigns, and she was receiving illegal funding from numerous outside sources to keep the information private. For example, there were numerous cases of sexual assault and misconduct committed by priests in San Francisco, and there were numerous records of victims and their stories. She was receiving funding to keep those records of those victims quiet. And eventually those records supposedly “don’t exist anymore”. There is just a lot of sneakiness and unknowns about why she was basically not doing her job. And how she was able to hold office for so long.

# data[].attributes.headline
Why didn't these politicians share important information about the pandemic with the American People(who they serve)?

# data[].attributes.subject
Why didn't these politicians share important information about the pandemic with the American People(who they serve)?

# data[].attributes.body
This article goes in depth of how a group of senators were able to sell off a bunch of stocks before Covid really became an issue in the US, because of inside information they had that the American public didn’t. So basically, these scumbags didn’t have to lose money because they all had inside information telling them to sell, the stock market is going to crash because this pandemic is basically going to shut down the entire country, which it did. The corruption here is that these politicians all had this information and didn’t even think to tell the American people about it because they’re too worried about their own personal loss. That’s where the issue is. What they should’ve done when they received this information was notify the American public immediately. Now they may have scared some people at first, but at least they would’ve been honest about it. But this is American politics were talking about here, there’s never any honesty at all.

# data[].attributes.body
Corruption doesn't just stop at Politics... major companies sweep dirt under the rug as well. One of our course sources I used was the Toms shoe campaign video from "Adam Ruins Everything". This video goes in depth of how the shoe company Toms, “buy one, give one” campaign was a bunch of bs. They wanted to pose like they were doing a good deed, when in reality they were just making more money for themselves in the process. So, it costs them only 4$ to make a pair of their shoes. So, when we buy one pair here in the states for their retail price of 60$, which actually are really 4$, they then send a pair of 4$ shoes to someone in need, which means that there is still 52$ left over. And where does that 52$ go you might ask? Right back to Toms or whoever owns that dumb company. So, at the end of it all, they wanted to pose as if they’re doing a good deed, but in reality, they’re not. They’re just making themselves money as always. So, the whole campaign was bs and I am glad they got exposed.

# data[].attributes.body
A big part of the modern world and it's technologies is facial recognition. It is widely used as a tool for law enforcement so they can identify people who have committed a crime. And it is also used by tech giants like Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Amazon as part of their software.  On surface level, it doesn't sound too bad, but like many other forms of technology, it's not perfect and it will fail eventually. An example of this failing is the wrongful arrest of Robert Williams, a black man from Detroit. His drivers license was matched to someone who was shoplifting, and he was held for more than a day in jail. Senior legislative counsel member, Neema Singh Guliani, at the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU), explains that "As the Williams story shows, the harms of face recognition are real for communities across the country. While many details about law enforcement use of this technology wrongly remain secret, the information we do have is cause for alarm. This surveillance technology is disproportionately inaccurate, is targeted at already over-policed communities, and is a threat to our privacy and civil liberties". It also mentions in the article that this facial recognition technology, consistently misidentify people of color and especially women. Major tech giants such as Microsoft and Google, have lessened their sales of this technology to law enforcement agencies but there is still a lot of work to be done to further tackle this issue.

# data[].attributes.body
Lipton, E., & Fandos, N. (2020, March 20). Senator Richard Burr sold a fortune in stocks AS G.O.P. played Down Coronavirus threat. Retrieved April 09, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/19/us/politics/richard-burr-stocks-sold-coronavirus.html

# data[].attributes.body
Rodrigo, C. (2020, July 02). Dozens of advocacy groups push for Congress to BAN facial recognition technology. Retrieved April 22, 2021, from https://thehill.com/policy/technology/505563-dozens-of-advocacy-groups-push-for-congress-to-ban-facial-recognition?rl=1

# data[].attributes.body
Rosling, H. (n.d.). Chapter Eight: The Single Perspective Instinct. Retrieved April 22, 2021, from https://app.perusall.com/courses/ss21-iah-231a-732-human-values-arts-and-hum-d/factfulness-ten-reasons-we-re-wrong-about-the-world-and-why-things-are-better-than-you-think?assignmentId=uReDCMJzZaxPTpCHj&part=1

# data[].attributes.body
TruTVnetwork. (2015, September 25). Adam Ruins Everything - Why "Buy One, Give One" Companies Don't Help Anyone. Retrieved December 14, 2020, from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX0g66MWbrk

# data[].attributes.body
Washington Post (Director). (2020, February 21). What Mike Bloomberg has said ABOUT STOP-AND-FRISK [Video file]. Retrieved April 10, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR1ep3yyan0

# data[].attributes.body
(2020, August 13). Corruptions of Kamala Harris, which main stream media is not covering. Retrieved April 09, 2021, from https://www.telanganamata.com/corruptions-of-kamala-harris-which-main-stream-media-is-not-covering/