Numbers and Symbols

Stone chapter 7 talked how symbols play an important meaning in societies and in politics. As I have stated in previous post, people have different perceptions and ideals towards concepts depending in their own experiences. As well, the meaning of symbols can be interpreted differently for each individual, culture, society and government. A theme that caught my attention is the story of decline and rising. Stone states “ The proposal might even take the form of a warning: unless such and such is done, disaster will follow” (Stone, 2012, p. 160).As we all know the main slogan for the president of the United States was to “Make America great again”. By using this phrase President Trump was delivering the message that the United States was facing a crisis. But if the American public vote for him, he will come and save us for all the problems that were existing in the country. During his political campaign President Trump blamed undocumented immigrants, minorities and vulnerable communities for the crisis that the United States was facing. As result of his political campaign, this slogan became a symbol in our country. For Donald Trump supporters symbolizes a new beginning for the United States without undocumented immigrants, without terrorism and more jobs for the “American” people. In the other hand, for the opponents this symbolizes discrimination, racism, inequalities and classism.

The next chapter about numbers resemble in several aspects to chapter 7. According to Stone, “One common way to define a policy problem is to measure it”. As a social workers we became aware of a social problem when an amount of people are suffering from it. For example, Stone mentions that in 1970s police reports for rape increased severely, because of the women’s movements in that time. This means that because several women speak up about being sexually assaulted, rape became a social issue in politics, government, and communities. As a sexual assault advocate, I have seen an increase of women, men and families reporting being sexually assaulted due to the increase of calls for hospital accompaniment in the past year. This means that programs and organizations are doing a great job by informing people about sexual assault services in El Paso.

Stone, D. (2012). Policy paradox: The art of political decision-making (3rd ed.). New York, NY: W.W.Norton & Company.

Related posts:

I like clothes and stuff as much as the next person. Like every female growing up in the 90s, I loved flipping through glossy pages of magazines, teaching me 9 essential steps to confidence. It was a…

Today I had the misfortune to find myself on CNN.com. I was greeted immediately by an autoplay video for a completely unrelated article. Autoplay is shit. Do it if you want me to add to the little…

Southern California is a hotbed of geothermal activity and plate tectonics, which can have the effect of creating an ever-creeping dread of the inevitable earthquake. But instead of living in…