Rhetoric in Class

This week in English class my professor brought up a small issue he observed in the decorum of the class. He mentioned things like eating in class, phone use, and side conversations. When he began this conversation it made me think of how I and some of my classmates might be failing in our rhetoric when it comes to class. Rhetoric is generally defined as the art of speaking and writing effectively. When I say effectively I mean to speak or write in a way that helps persuade people to believe the point you are trying to get across.  I have realized that rhetoric plays a part in many things in my life and I think its time I start paying attention to the way I am portraying myself. In class I need to make sure that my rhetoric shows that I am serious about my education and make sure I remain giving my professor my undivided attention so that he sees how serious I am about the class.

The Movement to Stop Joseph Kony

 This week in English class, one of my classmates mentioned the KONY 2012 video. I’m sure that by now the majority of you have watched or at least heard about the movement to stop Joseph Kony. Kony is a guerilla leader in Uganda and head of the LRA (Lords Resistance Army), which is made up of captured children of all ages who were taken from their families and forced to adapt a new lifestyle where murder, rape, and no mercy are a usual occurrence. There is a group called Invisible Children, Inc. that is currently fighting for the capture of Joseph Kony and an end to his armies all together. They made this video where they introduce and explain who Kony is and what the LRA is. They also have devised a plan to bring attention to this problem and bring justice to the children and families in Africa. The video itself is very moving, but the message is dire.

There has been much negative feedback towards the KONY 2012 video and their mission itself. Many are saying that instead of worrying about what’s going on in Africa that we should worry about what’s going on here in the United States and I don’t disagree with those people. Many are saying that no matter how many posters they put up or how many people they alert of the LRA and Kony, the problem will persist and only grow. I think these people are missing the bigger picture when it comes to KONY 2012. What the Invisible Children Inc. group is trying to do is raise the awareness of what’s going on in Africa and persuade people to write to their government so that they can then send help over to Africa. They aren’t saying that each person individually is going to make this change; they are simply saying that Africa needs some support. I enjoy seeing that Americans, especially the younger generations are eager to help and spread the awareness of Joseph Kony. When have so many people from our generation come together for anything? The fact they can find a greater cause to support and reach out to shows how we still have the chance to change other things here in the United States. If as a whole we can come together and persuade our government to send aid to help capture Joseph Kony, imagine what we can come together and change after that. I don’t think people realize the power they hold when they come together as a group and work towards a greater cause. I feel like this video, this movement if you will, will be the beginning of change.

"KONY 2012 is a film and campaign by Invisible Children that aims to make Joseph Kony famous, not to celebrate him, but to raise support for his arrest and set a precedent for international justice."  - Invisible Children Inc.

The Importance of a Bayan Learning Group

This week in English class we discussed various activities we were going to do in order to introduce people to the Bayan Learning community Southwestern College offers and to show people the importance of adopting a learning community at school. We not only plan on reaching out to the Southwestern College student community but also to high school and middle school students who one day may be attending this school and may want to join this group in the future. This is a project we are doing as a class and are dividing the work into individual tasks.

We plan on doing this in a few different ways.  We plan on hosting and event on campus at the college that will attract SWC students to the Bayan community. We hope to be able to have musical entertainment and food and hope to have many people learn about the Filipino American based classes in a relaxed atmosphere. We are looking into going on campus to various middle and high schools to inform them of this group SWC offers and the importance of it.

I plan on using my experience in the class to reach the various audiences on a personal level. I hope to share my experiences with them and hopefully they’ll be able to relate to me. What I think is the most valuable thing I’ve taken from working with this Bayan group is the importance of having a group of peers at school or out of school who you can confide in and that you know will support you through your career, whether it be educational or not.

First Essay of the Semester… YIKES!

This week in English class we had to turn in our first big essay of the semester. Luckily it concentrated around music and songs, which I especially enjoyed. What we were assigned to do was pick 3 songs that had a similar topic but different main ideas, then use those songs to distinguish the difference between the topic and the main idea of a piece of literature. We did many exercises in class to prepare us for the essay and even did a review workshop between our classmates to get feedback on our rough drafts.

This semester I decided to do something I had never done before and submitted my essay to the OWL, or the Online writing lab Southwestern College offers. It didn’t take longer than 10 minutes to fill out the form and submit it and I found it to be so helpful, I definitely recommend everyone take advantage of the resources being offered.

Link to OWL submission form

African American President, Higher Standards

This week I decided to attend a Lecture given by a Southwestern College professor named Stanley James. The lecture concentrated around the comparison of Jim Crow and President Obama. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Jim Crow laws, they were a set of laws that were enacted between 1876 and 1965 and mainly they surrounded the issue of racial segregation and the notion of “equal but separate.” Professor James was mainly trying to point out the fact that President Obama has undergone harsh scrutiny and has gotten a bad wrap for things he had no say or influence towards from the beginning.  Apart from that, the achievements he has made, for example healthcare for American citizens, was scrutinized and considered as “not good enough.”

An example the professor used to support his idea was the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and the Gulf Coast oil spill that occurred not too long ago in 2010. When the Exxon Valdez began dumping oil off the coast of Alaska in 1989 killing its entire ecosystem, blame was never put on President Bush for the handling and cleaning up of the mess, the blame was put on those who were actually responsible. Now the situation in the Gulf Coast in 2010, a group of dummies decided they were going to begin drilling for oil at the bottom of the ocean, and went ahead with it, without a plan B! No emergency plans, nothing! President Obama was not yet in office when this brilliant idea was conceived, yet he gets blamed and is expected to come up with their plan B?

Given the details the professor provided me with and the examples he used, it seems to me like once an African American occupied the presidential seat, the bar was raised, and the magnifying glasses came out. I don’t agree with all of the decisions president Obama has made during his presidency, but I do think many people need to take the facts into consideration and not place blame where it isn’t earned.

2010 Oil spill, Look at "Finding of Fault"

The Nonchalant Use of the "N" Word...

In English class this week we watched a video where UK poet Dean Atta recites his poem I am Nobodys Nigger, where he asks rappers specifically, but people in general, to stop calling him a nigger, and blames them for creating “Headless zombies that cannot think for themselves.”

This video sends a very strong and clear message, and I think the reason it moved me so much to blog about it was because he clearly states how Nigger is the last word Stephen Lawrence heard before he was murdered, and how it was the last word one would hear before being lynched. For those who aren’t aware, Stephen Lawrence was a young innocent African American teen who was murdered on a bus by a group of Caucasian teens in a racist attack.

When the poet makes these statements and describes how his ancestors were “stripped of dignity and all hope,” it reassured me of why I don’t use that word. I don’t use it, I have always thought it was offensive, period; now having listened to this poem, I feel like I need to share the poet’s message and try to point out to those around me of what they’re saying when they use the N word.

Conceptual Artist Adrian Piper did a piece called Calling Cards (example below) where she would hand these cards out to people whenever they made a racist remark. She would simply walk up to them, hand them the card, and walk away without saying a word, leaving the recipient of the card to wonder “What the heck?” If you read the card, Piper begins and approaches the person in a very friendly manner and shares with them that she is black, and apologizes for any discomfort she may be causing them because of her race, which is quite ironic wouldn’t you think, her apologize to them? I can’t speak for anyone else but if this occurred to me it would make me think twice about the things that came out of my mouth.  I feel like this needs to be redone and presented to people on a global level to stop this epidemic in its tracks, it’s a sickness really, people walking around saying things they really don’t know the meaning to, because if they did, they wouldn’t be saying the word to begin with , right?

One Man's Home is Another Man's Ghetto...

  I read this article from Issue 11 of The Kartika Review called “Home is Where the Wart Is” written by Donna Miscolta. She begins with describing her childhood growing up; she paints a picture of what her home was. Then she goes into describing various well known areas of the community where she grew up, a little place known as National City. We all have our own unique variations of what we call the community, mine is “Nasty City.” The author goes into describing various parts of the city, well known parks, community centers, the education, language, and cultures you would find there, and also gives the A.K.As of each spot. What the author essentially does is compare what she used to call home, a place where she felt safe, regardless of what crime was going on around her, and how what she saw as such a great place, others see as being crime filled and essentially “ghetto.” She  does a good job of pointing out how people are so easy to talk down on where people come from just because of what they hear form others, never experiencing living there themselves.  
  I have experienced this from some friends of mine. I grew up in Chula Vista, born and raised; within the past few years people have began to look down on the area because of how close to the border we are, but I have lived in the heart of Chula Vista for 23 years and have never been victim to any type of crime. They say bad things and make rude comments regarding the city, not realizing that Chula Vista is where I’m from, it’s who I am and it made me who I am. Which lead me to think…. One man’s home could very well be another man’s ghetto. Or woman.

Embracing Otherness...

   This week in class we read and watched a speech given by actress Thandie Newton titled “Embracing Otherness, Embracing Myself.” She speaks about how as babies we are born knowing where we belonged, who we were essentially, but as we grow up we are implanted with notions in our head about who we are, who and what we will be, how we will get there, and all this that is done subconsciously by our parents and family begins to separate us from being whole into different categories, characteristics if you will. We’ve all gone through different phases in life where we try to find who we are, we put ourselves in different roles to figure out which ones suit us best.
Eventually we all settle down and become who we are supposed to be given our cultural and spiritual backgrounds, but never once do we stop and say “Is that really who I want to be?”
   Thandie Newton does a great job of making you aware of the process that has occurred from when you were a child to your adult life now and really makes you wonder, have I found my essence? I encourage you all to follow the link and watch the video and really listen to the message she is giving.

And so we begin...

   Live, Laugh, Love. We’ve all heard the saying; we’ve seen the message written on picture frames and wall art, but how many of us have actually read the words and applied it to our lives? Christmas 2011 I was given a picture frame with these sayings on it “Live in wonder, Love with your whole heart, Laugh out loud” and I hung it in my bedroom. After waking up and seeing those words day after day I figured, “Why not take these simple words, and turn them into a way of living?” So I did, and it opened up the world to me in a way that I had never seen it before.
   Things that had no significance to me have become important. Over time I adapted the word learning to my newly found way of living, which I now call “Live, Laugh and Learn.” There are so many things out in the world that we don’t expose ourselves to, but if we never try it how will we know whether we enjoy it or not? And what would it hurt to try?  I invite you to open your eyes a little wider and see everything that this world has to offer you. When you live in wonder, love with your whole heart, laugh out loud, and open your mind to learning and experiencing new things, you’d be surprised by what you might discover.