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.
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.
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?
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.
