1

Memo
The World is a dangerous place with people that want to hurt me

Americans need guns to protect themselves from people

Actually crime is lower in America than it was before
Actually thinking people want to harm people is a mental disorder
People watch too much TV
There is actually good people with a good heart left in the world
Not all people want to kill people
Some people have schizophrenia or a phobia of being around people

Workshop Experience
I really liked my workshop experience. Even though I didnt have my whole
paper done, people gave me ideas on the stuff I was stuck on. Also one of my friends
shared with me a personal story that I could write on my paper which I thought was
pretty cool. I also liked how I could give feedback to people. By other people reading my
paper, it helped me more find grammatical errors. For a weird reason when I am revising
my paper I miss so easily grammatical errors. I am glad they could help me find them so I
could fix them.
Brittney T
Some Ideas to talk about on your paper:
Sandra Bland case.
all police officers are for the people because you see stories police officers know people that rape
somebody but they dont get in trouble
police killing people
personally- cops try to alter situations
you were horseback riding somebody hit you on purpose and got ticket and didnt get in trouble
because he was white and it was a small city that they probably knew each other
I will use Brittneys suggestions because cops are a big reason why people think
the world is now more dangerous and how people want to hurt us. I will use her story as
an example of why we dont feel safe around cops anymore
Brittney Tarbush

how this affects our society

how will this affect our world in the future
Kaya Wilson
How does our view of the world has changed over the last years?-grammar and
formatting errors but good overall
I will fix the grammatical errors and I will also fix formatting errors
Our view has changed because things are happening in the world that now scare
us. For example so many rapes and robbery. I will use her comment so I can explain how
our
views have changed due to the influence of the media.

Gretel Maya
Cultural Myths Essay
UWRT 1101-09
Laura Knudson
The world is a dangerous place filled with people that want to hurt me
Cultural myths are the set of beliefs and ideas that describes and characterizes a culture. In
this paper, I will be talking about this cultural myth: the world is a dangerous place with people
that want to hurt us. Our world is filled with wonderful people who care about others and have
good values. People who put others first instead of themselves. People who are good at heart and
are kind. Unfortunately, not everything is unicorn and rainbows. There is evil in this world.
Difficult situations make people do things that they are not proud of. Other people have mental
illnesses that make them do bad things. The people is scared of our world. People are scared of
people, but not everybody in this world has bad intentions.
We are taught by our elders to think of cops as being the people who will protect us and can
makes us feel safe. Unfortunately actual events have shown that this is not true, especially for the
people of color. Over the past years there has been more officers convicted for homicide, sexual
assault, and manslaughter. Officers have killed more innocent people that really did not mean
any harm. People have come to the conclusion that our police officers are more likely to harm us
than to help us.
Last year, over the summer, an officer killed a 17 year old white teen. The teen didn't have
a gun, and the officer killed him for flashing his car lights at him. The officer told the teen to
show him his driver's license but he did not have it. The officer demanded the teenager to get out
of the car and when the boy did, the officer threw him to the ground and told him that he was

under arrest. When the boy told the police officer that he couldnt arrest him, the police officer
shot him 7 times in the head. Sadly, they did not press any charges against the police officer.
Another case we can look at is the Sandra Bland case. Sandra Bland was arrested in Texas
for assaulting a police officer after she was pulled over for changing lanes without signaling. She
was a good citizen who did not have any criminal record. She was taken to the Texas jail where
she later died because she hanged herself with a trash bag. It was a very weird coincidence that
she was waiting on her trial so she could show the evidence video of what really happened to the
judge and the jury. She was even granted bail and her sister had her bail money. There was
really no reason for her to kill herself. People did not believe she committed suicide because she
had just landed on a new job and things were going well for her.
Something that happened to a close friend also proves how the police is corrupt. Brittaney
T. one day was horseback riding, as she usually did, when a car came and purposely swerved and
hit her. There was a police officer who saw the incident. The police officer did not give a ticket to
the man that hit her. The man did not get in any trouble. She lived in a small city and she told me
that probably the police officer knew the man that hit her.
These cases are a few cases of police brutality. People watch on the news all the time
innocent people getting killed for assaulting a police officer. These cases are why people are
scared and why we dont feel safe anymore. If a police officer hurts a person, then we think that
the same might happen to us. When we see a police officer, we may think that instead of helping
us he/she wants to hurt us. If we cannot trust our own police officers, who can we trust.?
According to our society we cant really trust anyone because the world is dangerous and
everybody wants to hurt us. In my opinion, there are still good police officers out there who try
to do their job. Not because a number of police officers are corrupt means that all of the police

officers are cruel and corrupt. Not all police officers try to alter situations. Not all police officers
try to harm people. The media only shows the few bad cases of police brutality.
One time we were driving back from Raleigh since we went to a concert. As we were at a
stoplight in Concord, a police officer pulled me over. I couldnt figure out why I was pulled over
if I had respected the speed limit and everything seemed fine to me. He asked for my drivers
license and told me that my lights were off. I told him that I was driving my moms car and that
we had stopped at a gas station; my mom was tired and wanted me to drive. I told him that I
forgot her car lights dont automatically turn on. I told him that my car is a newer car and my
lights automatically turn on. He checked to see if I was drunk, and told me that sometimes
people who dont have their lights on drive drunk. He told me that normally he would give a
ticket but that I was fine and to not do it again. He was trying to do his job and he was not trying
to harm me. I would not have been mad if he had given me a ticket, it was his job.
Not everybody is a criminal. Of course there are people that steal from people and rape
people, but that doesnt mean that the guy sitting beside you at the football game wants to rape
you. Crime is mostly caused by people who do not think and dont really measure the
consequences. Criminals do not have any social motivation to prevent them from committing
crime. Some of these criminals do not have any source of deterrence. Some criminals do not
even have families therefore they have nothing to lose. Some criminals even commit crimes
because they know that in prison they are at least going to have a roof to live under and 3 meals a
day.
Something happened to me that explains how not everybody is a criminal and that some
people do have good intentions. Two years ago I went to visit some family in Italy. One night my
cousin and I went to a Sagra which is a festival for a food. That time we went to the cheese

sagra. It is a very cool place because the festival is outdoors and they have all the cheeses they
make, food and music. Since there was a lot of people he had to park his car about 1km away
from the place of the festival. As it got late we got up and I walked by myself to go get his car. It
was getting late and it was very dark. As I was walking by myself in an unknown city where I
didnt know anybody, a male teenager starts walking behind me. I was not scared because I knew
my cousin was with me but just a little further behind me. This boy came to me and told me in
English that he wanted to come study in the United States. He asked me how life was in the
United States and how hard was to get into an American University. At the end, he did not want
to rob me or rape me, he only wanted to ask me questions. I am now friends with the boy and I
have him as a friend on Facebook. I am not saying that it is not dangerous to walk in a dark place
at night, I am just saying that not everybody has bad intentions. Not everybody is a criminal.
When people steal from people, society thinks they might use the money to buy drugs.
Actually there are people that rob people because they have nothing to feed their stomachs with.
We cant really judge a person if we havent really been in their shoes. I am not saying that
robbing people is a good or not a crime, I am just saying that there are people out there who rob
people not because they are evil, but because they dont want to die from hunger. These people
may have a good heart but situations make them do certain negative things.
Other people commit crime because of their mental abilities. Some people dont know the
difference between what is right and what is wrong. This doesnt mean that these kind of people
are evil and want to hurt people. They may have a good heart, but their cognitive ability is lower
than normal. Some of these people do not intent to harm others. Surprisingly crime is lower in
America than it was before. People dont realize that crime rates have gone down since the media
portrays otherwise.

Another big influence to this fear of everybody wants to hurt me is the media. In movies
people see the typical girl walking alone at night and then she gets attacked, robbed and raped.
Also there are movies in where a friend is not really your friend and does stuff behind your back
to hurt you. People need to realize that while there are a lot of people that their goal might be to
hurt others, that there are a lot of good people who want to bring a person good. Some people
even have an irrational fear of making friends since they might have been hurt in the past and
they think that they are going to get hurt again.
One time when I was in Mexico I wanted to go with my friend and her mom on a roadtrip.
I lived in Acapulco and we wanted to go to Mexico City. My mom was freaking out when I told
her because she told me Mexico City was very dangerous because she has seen on the news that
crime was really bad there. She told me that I was to get robbed and even kidnapped. I told my
mom we were going to Six Flags and we were only going to be inside the theme park so she
could let me go. At the end she let me go and I went to Mexico City. While we were there we
rode the metro which is supposed to be really dangerous , but we were fine. We walked the
streets at night and again nothing happened to us. Nobody kidnapped me and nobody robbed me.
Our whole trip was fine despite of all the crime that was happening according to the media.
Despite all the evil that is in the world, the world is still a good place with good people.
The world is still a dangerous place, but worrying about getting hurt is not going to change the
world. There are people that care about others and will give everything they have for people. Not
everybody wants to hurt people. There are people with good intentions. There are people with
good hearts. Not because there is a man on the street walking by means that he is going to rob or
rape a person. People need to realize that not everybody wants to harm people. There are good
people in this world. Everything the media portrays is just the stuff to make people think bad of

other people. We need to look at both sides and not only one. The world is filled with criminals
because they are the product of our society. In the end some people do what they do because they
have not been taught different. Some of these people actually have good hearts and in the end
people in this world will get hurt, but that is just how life is.