Word: descent
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...first, though, there had been hope. He met Audrey Warren, an American of Jamaican descent, married her in 1986, and qualified for permanent U.S. residency. The couple moved into a house on Long Island and had a son. Enrolled in a local community college, Ferguson made the dean's list three times. But that approximation of bliss collapsed in 1988, when Warren sued for divorce and won custody of their child. By last week, Ferguson was jobless and living in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, in a tiny $175-a-month room with a communal bath down the hall...
...descent was precipitous. At the time of his divorce, Ferguson began working for Ademco, a burglar-alarm manufacturer. A year into his job, however, he fell from a stool, receiving a back injury that led to his termination. He sued for compensation, won a $26,250 judgment but, for some reason, tried to reopen proceedings with the New York State workers' compensation board. He complained that he was a victim of racial prejudice and rejected state-appointed doctors sent to examine him because their surnames sounded ethnic and not black. Eventually, Ferguson, who wrote and called incessantly...
...free-fall, Hoffman timed his speed of descent with an altmeter and a stopwatch. Within 10 seconds, he determined that his impact speed would be too high, took off his primary parachute, opened his backup, and landed safely...
...rather like union members refusing to cross a picket line. The very use of the term "of color" -- which embraces blacks, historically antagonistic Asian ethnicities, Native Americans and Hispanics, many of whom are ethnically white -- implies that these disparate groups are bonded simply by not being of Northern European descent. Often such coalitions add up to a majority, but they cling to rights based on minority status. When white male conservatives feel harassed, multiculturalists retort that they are enabling these fellow students to share in the sense of disenfranchisement, enriching their understanding of the world...
...York of his day, a tribal pecking order prevailed in many fields. Mario Cuomo, though a top student, couldn't find a berth in any major law firm. Except for the lowliest jobs, Wall Street, insurance and banking were also closed to those of Mediterranean or Slavic descent. A handful of legal and financial establishments were the preserves of high-caste German Jews, seldom hospitable to Polish and Russian Jews. The Postal Service was more ) egalitarian. The merit system allowed a Baratz to rise in rank, slowly. But my father felt that he lived in confinement -- a condition from which...