Blog 092614

I have been asked “what are you” but its never really a welcome question. The context is typically on gender, as in “are you a girl or a boy?” “I’m neither” “ugh what ARE you thats not even possible just answer the question”. The question in any context is deeply disrespectful anyway. I think this question being asked out of the blue hypothetically for this assignment is meant to make us give our most unique feature, the thing we think defines us. If someone is white, they likely won’t think of race. If someone is a boy, they likely won’t think of gender, etc. The most privileged group won’t think of their privilege first. So my answer would be “I am non binary.” I think. 

This article was not really new information, but it went a lot deeper than what I knew already. I think society does not make people “pick a side” of race as much anymore. This is not to say it doesn’t, but I am saying the issue is slowing and will eventually stop happening. Rachel from “The Girl Who Fell From The Sky” is very definitely made to choose a side many times. Rachel has to choose to embrace her black side more for her grandmother, but the girls in her school label her as white. She also says that when she is with her black friends like Brick people say she is white, but when she is with Jessie people think she is black. She definitely seems to view herself as biracial. The entire article just reminded me of when Rachel asked Brick “what are you”.

I believe durrow would very much like the multiracial and biracial student association because of her general “own your history” philosophy. Her favorite answer to the question “What are you” is “I am a story. I bet you are too.” related to the suggested quote through the fact that instead of being specific or not-specific-enough her answer is vague and makes you think. It would also probably make whoever asked feel like she was avoiding the question though.

Blog 092414

In all honesty, I've never been much good at working with people. I can work pretty well with friends or people I know or have interacted with, but when it comes to working with strangers I act really shy and never ask the questions I need to ask and I get very anxious, so I didn't actually get much help from the conference. I usually work well with essays on my own, and the student had never read the books or talked to you about this project, so I had a better grasp on the situation than them. It may have been one of the most unhelpful attempts at essay writing I have ever had the unfortunate coincidence to be a part of. I think I would do much better if I were talking to someone who actually understood the project, or someone I knew. In the beginning I didn't really have any questions I needed answered, since I just hadn't thought much about the project to have questions, and if I had any they would not be something that student could have answered. There was not enough in my original prompt for it to be an "add or change", ill essentially build on the skeleton I built in the prompt. I may schedule an appointment with you on Friday with more written to see if that helps.

Blog 092514

Conventionally, beauty is a skinny girl with a big smile and plump lips, with smooth hair and a happy laugh when people push her around. American culture’s definition of beauty is one of the most harmful things i think i could imagine. It pushes that you can’t be too skinny or you’re anorexic, but you can’t be fat because then you’re obese. It pushes that if you’re black your skin needs to be lightened (if you don’t believe that one, look at some magazine covers before and after editing) and if you’re pale you need to be tanned. It pushes that if you wear too much clothing you’re prude but if you wear too little you’re a slut. American beauty is unachievable but it is expected of every woman and their worth is based on it.

Thinking about American beauty in its problematic nature has never been a hard question for me, likely because i have not been as subjected to it, as I am not a girl. I am not a boy either, but they probably get to think of it less than I do. Being a boy means you can ignore those things until you benefit. It means that they don’t think of beauty as something they must achieve but as something they are entitled to acquire. Women are led to believe that they must be beautiful to be loved.

My definition of beauty is less appearance-based (which sounds extremely fake, but it’s true). My definition of beauty is someone you can talk to and enjoy your time with, someone who makes you happy and seems happy. Someone who looks beautiful looks healthy and comfortable. I don’t know that I would consider myself beautiful, but maybe I’m getting there.

American beauty isn’t important. American beauty will never be important. It’s important that we get rid of American beauty.

The individuals’ opinion of beauty is very important, but its very important that we keep these achievable as well. This is not for others’ benefit of being percieved as beautiful. This is for their own benefit to see others as beautiful. To not see others as something to judge. Seeing beauty around you can make you really happy and not judging everyone who walks by can really take a weight off your shoulders. I’m trying my hardest to do this for my own happiness, and honestly I have already noticed a change in my attitude. When you let yourself percieve beauty as someone who is happy and not seeing someone unhappy as ugly, you’re just happier, you’re more upbeat, and you might seem more beautiful to others.

Creative Writing: Rachel's Voice

The model lady, Cameron Russel, talked about how being pretty means being white and skinny. Winning a genetic lottery. I think I won at least one genetic lottery, because I have blue eyes and good hair. She seemed to get it, she talked about how she was "priveleged" and it felt weird to be looking into all this stuff and talking about it. I think it was nice.

((sorry that was really short but she doesn't actually talk extensively about outside subjects in the book))

Related quote:

"But people look at me differently. I don't look just different or scary or undefineable: I look pretty. That pretty is what was Mor's: my eyes, now my straight hair. People act different around me too." (Page 97)

Final reflection:

I believe I was right in what I said before, but I didn't talk enough about certain parts. I didn't stress enough how conventional beauty is whiteness. Conventional beauty is straight hair and lighter skin and a voice people think is soft. Conventional beauty is just as white as you can get. I probably should have been thinking more about race when I wrote this, but I am priveleged enough that my first thought wouldn't be race, it would be something else, because being white means being able to ignore race because you're on top.

Blog 092314

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/columbia-mattress-student-draws-attention-anti-rape-movement-article-1.1948842

I believe this article caught my attention because it’s a very visual way to represent the way sexual assault and rape weighs on a person. To carry your mattress around must be a great burden, especially during the school day, moving from class to class, hour to hour, and this girl is extremely brave to do this, and she is amazingly courageous and selfless to do this for the other victims in her school as well. I have seen this in magazines recently, and in newspapers. This is the kind of publicity that sexual assault and rape need to gather, they need to get the nation educated and angry, because anger is what can empower change.

This, more personally, probably caught my attention because I know a lot of people who are victims of sexual assault and/or rape, and after showing them, many of them are excited about the publicity this is getting, they are glad that someone is finally getting close to showing those who haven’t experienced this kind of trauma what it’s like every day. I really hope this school makes the right decision and expels her and many others’ rapist, so she can go to her classes safely without being reminded of that terrible event by seeing him. If the school did, this would set a precedent for the future that rapists and sexual criminals will be expelled. If not, I’m sure the school would face some social consequences, because like I said, anger brings change.

This should not die down with the days the school doesn’t do anything, though. The longer this goes on, the less people will talk about it. The less these articles will be passed around. People will get bored, they’ll forget, they’ll think that its a big bummer to be seeing something this upsetting all the time and they’ll ignore it, but they don’t think about how these victims can’t just ignore it.

It’s in their face. It’s there every day. It’s there when they walk to school. It’s there when they go home and it’s dark and they hold their keys between their fingers, just in case. It’s there when they hear people use ‘rape’ as a synonym for beat or win against and no one says anything. It’s there when they can’t sleep in their bed anymore because it brings back memories. It’s there when you sit in class, when you go to get coffee, when you move, when you breathe. It’s there like a mattress over your shoulder.

But you can’t put it down.

Anger brings change. Maybe we need a little bit more anger, anyway.

Blog 091714

I have chosen the passage that is the last paragraph on page 111 that moves onto page 112

text to text: "Grandma is wearing a good dress with an apron. She wipes her hands on the inside of the apron pockets as she cooks." (111) this passage probably seems pretty obvious as a thing to link, but because im only linking it to one thing really strongly, I picked this one. For some reason this passage is reminding me of the scene in kiki's delivery service where they take the pot pie out of the oven. I think it's the word apron and the fact that cobbler is acknowledged later on in the passage, but I honestly don't know for sure.

text to world: "She wants me right up under her, watching how she does the cooking so I can feed my future husband a healthy meal." (112) This passage kind of, maybe without meaning it, really shows a deeply misogynistic society, and a heteronormative one at that. The woman will do the cooking because the man can't, the man has more important things to do. Cooking is woman's work, and being able to cook will help achieve a future husband. This also implies that the man won't be able to cook himself a healthy meal, since in today's society a lot of boys don't know how to do simple things like laundry or cooking because of how ingrained gender roles are in their lives. The heteronormativity is also strong here, as it's implying 1. Rachel will have a husband. 2. Rachel will be a romantic individual. 3. Rachel's future husband will also follow classic gender roles.

text to self: "She has made her spicy beans and a roast with gravy and real potatoes, not the ones that are flakes in a white box that says mashed potatoes" (111) This passage really reminds me of having eaten the flakes from the white box and i want to stress the fact that they do not taste much like potatoes at all, they're pretty gross. Or maybe the stuff I ate just wasn't made right.

Blog 091514

http://abcnews.go.com/US/slender-man-suspect-unfit-stand-trial-lawyer-argues/story?id=25506999

text to text: in government class last year we watched a video of a young boy who fatally stabbed a woman working in a store he was robbing, and the words incompetent really stick out to me here. I believe they were similar in age and both attempted homicide, one succeeding, and both instances are generally upsetting to the public (this is probably obvious since theyre both murders or attempts at murders....)

text to world: This kind of reminds me of jack the ripper (who was supposedly recently identified but youre going to have to assign another blog to get me to get into that one, theres too much to write), kind of because there was stabbing but i think mostly because they both involve horror story elements. Jack the Ripper has been a classic trope in serial horror for a long time, and slenderman was a really popular internet "creepypasta", and starred in a horror game of his own.

text to self: I have definitely not experienced anything like this, the closest connection I can make is that I've played the slenderman horror games and read some of the stories people come up with, but i cant grasp these two kids attempting murder to appease him...

Blog 091214

The article you had us read (the eleven part one) was actually really wrong on a lot of levels. I've been doing a lot of research into Ferguson since it started and here is an image of the notes I took while reading it:

so, I think you'll like this one since it may be a little bit opinionated. The article I picked was actually a video from Group A. It was John Oliver's satirical bit on ferguson, and I think that one hit me hardest. I am a deeply sarcastic person, and addressing things with sarcasm has always helped me to show others just how obscenely unnecessary some things are. He mostly focused on the unnecessary and untrained militarization of the ferguson police system, which is honestly something most people are forgetting. The main reason this conflict has gotten to the point it has are attempts to limit people's rights and intimidate them. Telling them they can't be out past dark, they can't film anything, they can't stand in empty roads unarmed and be black at the same time. These are bad enough in themselves, but intimidating people simultaneously with an enormous presence of tank-like vans, guns pointed at citizens, etc. is certainly not helping the situation. John didn't even touch on the police's tactics to disperse crowds, such as deafening them, blinding them, shooting at them. It seems a little unnecessary. I honestly think we need to have an entirely new system set in place in ferguson with accurate representation of its citizens and the citizens needs in mind.

Blog 090414

When we started thinking about the passion project I honestly had no idea. I am very passionate about many things, you could get me to easily type up ten pages on just about anything, from video games to the faults of capitalism but with this size project all that was left was "what do I not hate enough?". If I really liked something, I don't want to get sick of it by having to constantly think about it critically, after all, ignorance is bliss. Just enjoying the best parts of something is something I'm good at. I have to enjoy what I do this on though, right? Otherwise the entire project would be torture. So when settling into what could possibly fit this criteria, I went through some social issues as options, as I am pretty passionate about human rights, but I realized as well, I would have to do such extensive research I met get known for being that kid that never shuts up about womens' rights or ableism or something, which while I'm passionate for them, I don't want a reputation like that. In the end, while thinking about how much I deeply disliked this entire concept, I got into my commonly-thought-out hatred of the American school system. "This entire thing is so unnecessary! Wouldn't it be better to be learning to do taxes instead of math I won't use?" "Why not be taking specialized classes for the job I want instead of generalized classes I can't understand?" not to mention the ableism ingrained in public schools, the binarism, the hints of misogyny. I guess my best option for the passion project is just an outright refusal to entirely respect the project itself? I think it would be an interesting idea, to say the least. If this is confirmed as something I could do, I would spring for the concept. I think it would be a great project if I could find some of many issues in the american school system, and I could find plenty of material on it through searches into why some schools are failing, why students have decreased morale, why depression and anxiety rates are up, etc. etc.