Blog #9

That picture itself was racist whether Barich was trying to make it intentional or not. He tried to say that the community is also racists due to the fact that some are rednecks, some are white privileged people, and some are hippies. He also tried to say that Robert Downey Jr. was also a racists because he played a black man in a movie role. It was a comedy and viewers know that before he was gonna go black in the movie he announced it. I think that Barich should have been more aware of what he was doing and posting up for the public, for somebody of his age he should of been more mature and respectful.

Blog #8

1. What is your response to the use of the N-Word in this book? Some argue that it’s necessary to maintain historical realism, while others argue that it’s demeaning and unnecessary. What is your response? Also, how should our class deal with this word, since it’s used throughout the book and we have to talk about the book?

Thesis: In today’s modern society it is unnecessary to be used in any book but we have to remember that it was published in the a few generations ago and is necessary for The N-word is used excessively in this book because the author Mark Twain is using it to maintain historical and regional realism.

Body main points: The N word is used to refer to slaves and black African Americans during that time and gives the book an originality of its time.

We have to remember that the N-word is a sensitive word and that we are only talking about the word for analytical and class purposes only.

The word is used real excessively, Mark Twain needed to include the word for his readers to have a subjective approach to the reading, and he wanted to open up new views about blacks during that time.

If anybody has any other points or assist me in any new info let me know please.

Blog #7

My reaction to the video of the police officer pulling over the NFL running back incident really shocked the heck out of me. First of all I thought that the police officer even considering what was going on during the situation had no compassion for what was going on in another human beings life. For me I think that the officer has to first understand that a mother is dying at the moment, but the officer decides not to even take that into consideration. It's almost inhumane how the officer talked to Ryan in the video. Next I would like to emphasize on Ryan's situation, he was probably scared, yet angry and emotional because his mother in Law was dying, yet here he is being harassed by the cop and being held from going to see her. Then again he is just a human being and reacting in the way he was, he was distressed. The officer who is trained to react and control situations like that could of done a better job at handling the situation instead of writing up a traffic violation based on the person's skin color, what vehicle they were driving, and racial profiling. The way the officer handled the situation was very poorly done, if he could swap being in the shoes of Ryan then he would then be able to see the other side of the story. I think that they both had a communication error between each other, but from what and how I see it, it was a disturbing scenery all together.

Blog #6

How are you interpreting Jim? What meaning are you taking away from the characterization of him in the text? Is he an example of a minstrel? Is his characterization contributing to double consciousness?

I am interpreting Jim as a slave who is a person with lots of potential to become a great person. He is a very religious and superstitious person, I don't blame him in the first place because back at that time there wasn't much education offered to many black slaves. So I think that's a factor in why he so superstitious, although in the context of the book he does seem as if he is the humor of the story. I can compare him to a minstrel but then again he is a character that is there for the reader's and people's entertainment not because he is making fun of himself, it's just that is how he is as a human being. Jim is just being himself, only because he has his own characteristics and because that's how other people view him based on his humiliating events and beliefs.

Blog #5

I know for sure that racism/sexism still exists today.One of my findings is that I think that my work place is actually one of them. When I first started working at the restaurant I'm working at now I wanted to be a waiter, yet the manager assigned me the job of a buss boy and food server. I also noticed that overtime when she hired new people it was the males that did the labor jobs, and every new female face I saw always had the waitress job. I still work for the place because I need to survive in this recession but that right there is a prime example of sexism. The other day I was watching the news on TV there was a Muslim family that was refused by American Airlines because the wife asked the question " where's the safest place to sit?". After that they were denied from getting on the flight. Racism/sexism is still around today and that people today still take it seriously, now here is a controversial one that's got a lot of people talking is that a rapper by the name of "Nas" not too long ago released an album and titled it "Nigga". How are we in society suppose to react to something such as that especially when a white teenager or person wants to buy it in a retail store? Are they looked upon differently than those people who have black skin color that purchase the album? We see it everyday yet because Obama's president now racism is over, but not by a long shot.

Essay #4 rough draft

4. How do people perceive you? What do they base these perceptions on? What do you think about the ways you are seen by others?

I have been through elementary and I have been through high school. The way I am viewed by other people is reflected and determined by the way I look. I believe that people look upon me as an Asian American, not an American citizen. What I have to go through while growing up has a lot to do with who I am today and how I am viewed by others. I am viewed by other people by whom I am on the outside, yet that doesn’t reflect on who I really am as an individual person. They only see my outer characteristics, my weird language, and the stereotype of what it means to be Asian. With These sayings I am a person who you can’t just compare to every other Asian they’ve seen, whether it’s from their own experience with Asians, or from the media or from their parents raising them to view me in that way.

I want to explain a little bit of what it means to be an Asian American. America’s society has created its own image of what Asian people are through the media. I am looked upon as a person who must excel at every aspect at school. We drive around in our imported Japanese cars, or we are savages because we eat dog or cats. First of all my family doesn’t eat dog or cat, that source exist only in Laos, the country my parents are from. People eat what they can get their hands on because they are very poor out there, they face extreme poverty, but it doesn’t mean that all Asians eat it. Japanese super cars are just part of Asian culture that got real popular in the U.S., it probably originated from Asia but it also doesn’t mean that I have to own or drive one. I work hard at school because my parents want the best for me, so they push me to motivate me when it comes to education. This goes for every other parent out there who wants the best for their children; it’s just that my parents are pretty strict about it. As for the media, especially Japanese anime has nothing to prove that I’m Asian, like again it’s just a popular fad in our culture. I also think that my language plays a huge role in how people view me.

I speak Laotian because it was the first language that was taught to me. It was the only my parents could communicate with me when I was growing up. And its part of my background and it’s a piece of who I am and where my family originated from. I also use this language to communicate with my other relatives such as uncles, aunties, cousins and the elderly since they don’t speak any English. I do admit that I have a bit of an accent and don’t really sound like the typical average American kid growing up either. I used to be made fun of when I was in elementary, the other kids would laugh and joke about my language because it seemed strange to them. Some of the students look at me as if I was mentally challenged because I had a hard time learning English. Even then I felt deprived of my humanity when other people hear my language it annoys them, they’ll yell or shout in a rude way “speaks some English will you!” I used to really feel offended and ashamed of my own language because it wasn’t quite Chinese, and I used to wish that I was born into a white family. It used to hurt a lot and I would always make a fuss about it to my brothers and friends. Today I embrace it only because besides my memories and language, it is all I have left of me as an Asian American. While every day I don’t speak it, it fades away slowly as I become more Americanized. I think to myself it wouldn’t matter if I was some other ethnic while growing up because it’s just how people view me in this society.

I remember back in high school, my appearance made a big difference to the how other students thought of me. I didn’t have fancy clothes because I couldn’t always afford new shoes, new clothes, or backpack. It also had to do with who I hung out with and felt comfortable around. Since in my high school there seemed to be a growing problem with gangs, I was labeled a person who associated with ABZ commonly own as an Asian gang who represented the color blue. My slanted eyes, my light skin, my short height, and the way I spoke are just factors for other students to use and continue to believe about the stereotypes of who I am inside and out.

Blog#4

The multiple messages are that Obesity is disgusting looking and that it is not accepted in our society. Fat barbie dolls and fat super heroes are not very attractive or very heroic like. It is almost used to let children know that the ideal body type for kids is thin and skinny. It could also be a message that kids need to be active and stay fit, eat healthy so that they won't have to suffer the consequences of looking fat in our society. I mean these kids are only about ten to eleven years old, and I believe that those images really contribute to pressure the children to be thin. That could be the start of a unhealthy diet or pressure them to dislike people that are fat and obese in general. It's not right, especially because everyone has different body types because it could really hurt people that are larger than others. It could hurt them emotionally and physically and will probably lead to depressed children at younger ages.

Blog#3

On the left side of the screen there, you have the typical American kid, who lives his life just growing up, and living his daily life. Its very important because what caught my eye is that even though I grew up poor, my lifestyle was similar to that American boy's life. I think that most of all of us can relate as long as we went to public schools. On the right side you see an Asian kid, who is being exploited to work in a factory where he is "Forced" to make shoes because it is the only thing he knows. It's the only way he can eat, and only source for survival. He works in very harsh conditions, probably doesn't get paid and is receiving no education. His life is going no where as his daily routine is the same each and every single day. The shoes that he creates everyday is worn by the American boy on the left. The video is very depressing to me because kids are our future, and I can't believe how horrible that Asian kid must feel. I have relatives who live in a Third world country full of poverty too. I have visited them and breathed their world for a whole month. So the lifestyle that I have here today, I believe that we take for granted and don't really realize how much some other kid or person out there would trade places in our shoes.

Essay#2

Roger Phasayaseng
Lauren Servais
English 1A
10 February 2009
#3: Winn argues that television interferes with family life and keeps families from interacting in meaningful ways. Do you agree or disagree? Why?

Imagine the world without television, what would it be like if we had no T.V. inside our homes? What would it feel like to have your T.V. taken away after it has changed the lifestyle of American families? T.V. plays a huge role if not probably the most important one in my life. Why it is something I like to call sports, commonly labeled as a popular American culture if not a phenomenon. It isn’t just me that watches T.V., there are millions of other Americans who watch T.V. because we are born into a generation where we must have television. Since the introduction of television, I believe that interaction between families in meaningful ways has been changed negatively. Children face social communication problems because television affects their ability to communicate with other students. Families seem to have less interaction between each other and less socialization amongst themselves. And it is a temporary solution to family and relationship disputes that don’t really get solved but get worse.
First thing I want to tackle is that children who grow up in this society face a huge problem with verbal communication. Interacting and speaking with other students has become a challenge for young children raised by television. “Studies show that importance of eye-to-eye contact for instance, in real-life relationships, and indicate that the nature of one’s eye-contact patterns, whether one looks another squarely in the eye or looks to the side or shifts one’s gaze from side to side, may play a significant role in one’s success or failure in human relationships”(Winn 462). During television programs, children who watch the T.V. alone are spoken to by the person onscreen speaking directly into the camera. So to the viewer it appears the person onscreen is interacting with them. Except the fact that the viewer doesn’t have any means to communicate back. They can’t ask any questions, make any eye contact, and don’t expect any answers or replies either. This seriously effects kid’s communication with other students, children, and even adults. This may also affect their ability to learn since communication plays a key role in how students interact with their teachers at school. These kids often become lonely at school because they have a hard time making friends and just generally interacting with other students. This leads to parents who don’t socialize or interact with their kids because the kid is often left alone to watch T.V. by them self.
How parents interact and socialize with their children is vital to who the children will become when they grown up. Families who interact with each other daily at dinner time, during homework, and during free time usually determine if the family feels connected with each other. When parents and children socialize with each other, it gives them both an opportunity to both learn more about each other. The parents get a better perspective on how the kid is doing at school and what kind of friends they are hanging out with. Kids who get that kind of attention from their parents make them feel confident as they need guidance in order to reach adulthood. Television is very time consuming and often dominates this family bonding time at home. “As family ties grow weaker and vaguer as children’s lives become more separate from their parents’ as parents’ educational role in their children’s lives is taken over the by the media, the school, and the peer group, family life becomes increasingly more unsatisfying for both parents and children”(Winn 464).

Thanks I appreciate the feed back and hit me with what you got!

Blog #2 "freedom of speech"

There are some people out that still believe in racism, and I don’t think that’s cool at all. Any ways we had to wear uniforms in middle school. I remember it was green collar shirt and khaki pants the whole way. In my high school no gang colors were allowed, no drug affiliated clothing was allowed. No red or blue doo rags, no hanging belts. I mean I can see how that would prevent violence and demote gang activity. At the JC I think you can wear whatever you want as long as you don’t start trouble with anybody. The banning of the Obama T-shirt was still wrong to be banned but I think that it was for the boy’s safety. That boy could’ve been beaten, I’ve seen and heard a few racist stories where somebody got beat or killed because of discrimination. I just hope that one day out Nation can leave stuff like that in the past.

My fav. song for my life

My favorite song is “Smile like you mean it” by the Killers. I like this song because the lyrics tell a story behind it. The lyrics bring about child memories that I have, and remind me of very important moments in my life. It reminded me of things that really stick in my mind when I was growing up. It paints a picture of the neighborhood that I grew up in, my friends that surrounded me at the time. It reminds me of the best times that I had in high school. It brings about a calm atmosphere to my mood whenever I listen to it because it gives me an emotional high. Whenever I’m feeling down and pissed off, I listen to this song. It makes me want to be stronger, step up my goals and feelings about my life. I worked so hard to get to where I am right now, I just came out of a depressing state not that long ago. And every month I become more aware of who I am or who I used to be. It makes me want to brighten up my day no matter how bad it is at times. The song almost defines the things that I went through, or I will be going through. Especially women, you don’t know how to be a man until you meet a girl, then life gets messy. You live and look at the world differently and suddenly things become complicated again. Complication is good becomes it drives me to seek out ways to simplify my life.