Directions: In at least 1,000 words, write the first draft of an essay responding to a Question at Issue you create based on the discussions we’ve had in class, the required readings, and/or your own ideas or interests about race and/or class. If you wish, you may also write another essay about gender and sexuality as long as you do so in the context of race and/or class. Once you have found a Question at Issue you feel you can respond to, make an assertion in the form of an enthymeme and support your argument with evidence and analysis. A counterargument is not a requirement for the essay 2.1, though it will be a requirement for the essay 2.2. Counterarguments must be related to the essay topic and should be refuted in service of strengthening your own position.

Topic: Review Coates’s essay to come up with a working definition of the term structural inequality (pages 458, 460) and look for examples in your own life. For example, are children structurally unequal to adults? Students to teachers? Poor people to rich people? Are the structures and inequalities morally reasonable or necessary, and why or why not? When you have answered some of these questions, write an essay in which you explain how one group lost to the other.