Monday, December 29, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Racism in the Elevator
funny, yes, but true. and sad.
Let's face it: in 2008, racism is still very much alive in our country. While we may have taken a step forward with the recent presidential election, look at the distribution (or lack thereof) of wealth in this country. As a result of generations of white-dominated governmental policies, predominantly black communities are being cast further and further away from the high reaches of the economic spectrum. The percentage of children in the Bronx public school system who go all the way through to graduate is staggering: barely 27. That's less than 3 out of every ten kids making it just through high school. While that's a jagged pill to swallow, it's no wonder when you stop to look at the factors that could and oftentimes do coerce them out of the classrooms.
In my time as a mentor in the Bronx, I had the privilege to get to know some of the brightest kids I've ever met by being a mentor with Morris Academy Mentors. Kids from all over New York City spent their Saturday mornings with us because they knew they wanted more than just what their school system could give them. They were intelligent, charismatic, funny, and especially in tune with the nature of their environment in relation to the rest of the country's. Together, we spoke of hopes, dreams, their lives, and of the world as we all saw it.
It was the Saturday after Super Tuesday, 2008 for the U.S. democratic primary race. We broke off into smaller groups to discuss our political views during a time of political headwinds. Keeping in mind that none of these kids were old enough to vote, I began my small-group discussion by asking these young adults, in their eyes, what the most important political issues were. Of the five people I asked, four of them said gun control was their main issue. Three of them said their second most important issue was health care.
Many of these kids live in the projects. Illegal handguns are a part of their reality. Since they've never really been a part of mine, this response was surprising to hear at first. I mentioned what the kids said to my supervisor. He told me that if I truly wanted to understand where these kids were coming from, that I should visit one of their homes. I told him that I would probably feel pretty vulnerable, and he just said to me, "How do you think they feel? It's a miracle these kids are even here right now."
"But health care?" I asked Charlie. He pursed his lips and sighed deeply, "A lot of these kids' parents are single, and nearly all of their parents can't afford to get sick. When they do, weight falls on the shoulders of the kids to earn money for their households. The parents are the number one reason kids drop out of school. Money is of higher importance than going to school."
Class polarization is immanent. The nature of it, though, is such that it continues to occur at an increasing rate if measures aren't taken to halt it. The election of Barack Obama may prove to be a step forward for blacks in the United States to finally gain equal representation, but my guess is that it probably won't do too much in just four years. The change that this country seems so desperate for needs to come from within people, not a president. Whether we admit to ourselves that we're subconsciously racist or not, our simple adherence to society as it is makes all of us, myself included, accountable for how the impoverished groups of people in our society are treated.
I am willing to admit that I, like many born in this country, was born into and thus unknowingly adhered to the hegemonic social predisposition that whites in the United States were more important, or "better" than blacks. Despite the fact that progress had been made in the United States in regards to civil rights, there were still those subconscious subtleties that remained in our culture and in us. This video demonstrates exactly what I'm saying. Sure, my mother may have told me not to be racist, but why, then, did she lock the car doors when we drove through a black neighborhood?
In my most humble opinion, I think that in order to truly understand that our culture's preconceived racial conception is false and unjustifiable, one must be able to identify and isolate the very events that led them to that conclusion in the first place. For me, my brief experience as a mentor in the Bronx was an event that opened my eyes in many ways. Mainly, the experience assessed, in me, how far I've come, and how far I still need to go in my understanding of how things relate to me, race included. This is to say, of course, that I realize the inherent hypocrisy of me even writing this.
More often than not, it is difficult for a person to change the way they view things just because other people tell them to. No one likes being wrong, myself included. But when the wool is pulled from our eyes, and the truth of things is laid out before us. It is difficult to continue going through life with the ideas and opinions we had once so blindly clung to. Racial inequality is just one of the things that the better of us struggle with every day to consciously try and rectify. In closing, I suppose the purpose of me writing this, if anyone has even read this far, is to say that I haven't forgotten my social responsibility as an individual: try to remember not to remember to lock my car doors whenever a black person walks passed.
Current Events: December 4, 2008
A brief summary to bring you up to date with my world through my eyes: take a deep breath.
The Stupid Economy
We're in the midst of an economic collapse in the United States. Everyone's talking about it, been talking about it, and yes, will continue talking about it. Under the umbrella of this recession, which the "experts" say began in December of 2007, is a countless array of topics to suit all people's tastes. Whether it's food prices, the cost of education, gas prices or the cost of living, people everywhere have money as the main focus in their lives. Not really sure what's changed since all this recession talk started, but here we are: here and now.
What's been on the news lately (the past couple of weeks) has been the auto industry. United States automakers are scrambling to see where they went wrong, and what's worse, what they need to do to turn a profit. Last month the CEOs from the big three, GM, Ford and Chrysler, all went to Congress to ask for bailout money after showing up in their own private jets. Congress said no. The CEOs then threatened that if their companies went under, then this country will sink through a mere recession and into, yes, a depression. Congress still said no. Congress, like myself, would like to see not only the outstretched hand of the auto industry, but a plan within that outstretched hand that will guarantee that this "crisis" won't happen again.
Let's face it: when it comes to designing cars, the United States have floundered severely. For brevity's sake, I will not go into why I think they've floundered. All I'll say about it is this: I used to drive a Chevy, and now I drive a Honda. If the big three expect people to buy their cars, if they expect bailout money from me and all of you, then they're going to have to remember 2 important words: fuel efficiency.
CNN Coverage of the Mumbai Attacks
I was in Buffalo for the Thanksgiving holiday last week. Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite days of the year. I've always loved flying home to Chicago from New York to be with my family and friends, lounge on the couch, watch football, and gorge myself with a spread of the best food I'd probably have all year. This year, however, since the economy is so tight and i can't afford a 400 dollar plane ticket, I decided to go up to my girlfriend's hometown to visit some of her family and see where she came from. I arrived, and her family was warm, gracious and accommodating.
We arrived on a wednesday, which was the first day of the attacks on Mumbai. Now, I'm not going to call these men terrorists, even though they fit our country's media's perception of a terrorist to the 't' (pun intended). If a kid who shoots up a college classroom isn't going to be considered or labeled a terrorist by the news stations, then I am not going to perpetuate the double standard that George W. Bush has created by calling these men terrorists either. Instead, I'm going to call them what they are: gunmen. Anyone care to dispute me on this?
By the third day of the standoff, these gunmen combined to kill over 180 people, and injure over 300 more. While a couple of the gunmen were apprehended or found dead, many of the remaining were said to have escaped by starting a fire as a diversion. Whether I believe that or not is another story for another blog. On Friday night, after my girlfriend and her family had all gone to bed, I stayed up and watched Larry King Live on CNN. Yes, I know, it's not a legitimate news source, but it's all I had at the time. Regardless, I watched with horror the pictures that came onto the screen. Bodies covered in bloody sheets, a marble corridor pooling with red puddles. Crying women. Men with guns. An older woman is dragged by her ankles out onto the street; she's dead. As I watched the pictures, the voice of one of the people who had been inside the hotel kept saying, "There is blood all over! Blood all over!"
By this point in the ordeal, police didn't even know if they could go in to give assistance to those who were in need of it. Several explosions were still going off. Imagine: 3 days of being trapped in a hotel, and not knowing if this group of younger-looking, irrational and unreasonable religious fundamentalists was going to take my life. I tried to imagine, and it was awful. I imagined being there, barricading the door, hiding under the bed, crying for my mother. I thought of my girlfriend and how sad it would make her if something like this had happened to me. I imagined experiencing the account of a man who was in the building at the time he saw several people drop dead right in front of him. It was difficult enough to try and recreate those accounts, but I knew that my imagination could never do justice to the first hand experiences of those victims. Larry King then said that his time was up, but that CNN would be returning in two hours with extended coverage of the developments there, and that I should not go anywhere. For two hours until then, however, CNN would be airing an encore presentation of Anderson Cooper's Heroes award ceremony... "Wow" I thought to myself. These people really don't give a shit about what they're reporting, or how their reports may affect its viewers.
Needless to say, I was feeling a little bit scared; a little bit vulnerable. I went upstairs to try and wake my girlfriend up and tell her how much it scared me to think of something like that happening to me, but all I did was sort of piss her off. Unable to sleep, I returned to the very thing that induced me with such great anxiety to now deliver me with mindless banter and nonsense: the television.
Just a few channels down from CNN was Conan O'Brien. He was doing some skit about holiday gifts for this year: a vomiting Kermit the Frog and a masturbating Grizzly Bear. The skit, with one absurd gesture leading to another, made me laugh out loud in the exact same spot, where, just minutes earlier, I teared up at the thought of being violated by religious fanatics. This is why I'm writing about the Mumbai attacks: not necessarily because of what had happened, (which was terrible) but the way in which the news media uses words, pictures and gestures in order to conjure up ideas in people's minds. These ideas, however heavily laden they may be with graphic images and the like, are fleeting. All one has to do is flip the channel to be affected from the opposite direction. Such is the nature of our culture and our existence. We watch the news, we hear what is said, we feel for the victims for a moment or two, and we converse over the implications of the unfolded events. We do all of this, and then we flip the channel to laugh at a spring-loaded masturbating bear.
The Stupid Economy
We're in the midst of an economic collapse in the United States. Everyone's talking about it, been talking about it, and yes, will continue talking about it. Under the umbrella of this recession, which the "experts" say began in December of 2007, is a countless array of topics to suit all people's tastes. Whether it's food prices, the cost of education, gas prices or the cost of living, people everywhere have money as the main focus in their lives. Not really sure what's changed since all this recession talk started, but here we are: here and now.
What's been on the news lately (the past couple of weeks) has been the auto industry. United States automakers are scrambling to see where they went wrong, and what's worse, what they need to do to turn a profit. Last month the CEOs from the big three, GM, Ford and Chrysler, all went to Congress to ask for bailout money after showing up in their own private jets. Congress said no. The CEOs then threatened that if their companies went under, then this country will sink through a mere recession and into, yes, a depression. Congress still said no. Congress, like myself, would like to see not only the outstretched hand of the auto industry, but a plan within that outstretched hand that will guarantee that this "crisis" won't happen again.
Let's face it: when it comes to designing cars, the United States have floundered severely. For brevity's sake, I will not go into why I think they've floundered. All I'll say about it is this: I used to drive a Chevy, and now I drive a Honda. If the big three expect people to buy their cars, if they expect bailout money from me and all of you, then they're going to have to remember 2 important words: fuel efficiency.
CNN Coverage of the Mumbai Attacks
I was in Buffalo for the Thanksgiving holiday last week. Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite days of the year. I've always loved flying home to Chicago from New York to be with my family and friends, lounge on the couch, watch football, and gorge myself with a spread of the best food I'd probably have all year. This year, however, since the economy is so tight and i can't afford a 400 dollar plane ticket, I decided to go up to my girlfriend's hometown to visit some of her family and see where she came from. I arrived, and her family was warm, gracious and accommodating.
We arrived on a wednesday, which was the first day of the attacks on Mumbai. Now, I'm not going to call these men terrorists, even though they fit our country's media's perception of a terrorist to the 't' (pun intended). If a kid who shoots up a college classroom isn't going to be considered or labeled a terrorist by the news stations, then I am not going to perpetuate the double standard that George W. Bush has created by calling these men terrorists either. Instead, I'm going to call them what they are: gunmen. Anyone care to dispute me on this?
By the third day of the standoff, these gunmen combined to kill over 180 people, and injure over 300 more. While a couple of the gunmen were apprehended or found dead, many of the remaining were said to have escaped by starting a fire as a diversion. Whether I believe that or not is another story for another blog. On Friday night, after my girlfriend and her family had all gone to bed, I stayed up and watched Larry King Live on CNN. Yes, I know, it's not a legitimate news source, but it's all I had at the time. Regardless, I watched with horror the pictures that came onto the screen. Bodies covered in bloody sheets, a marble corridor pooling with red puddles. Crying women. Men with guns. An older woman is dragged by her ankles out onto the street; she's dead. As I watched the pictures, the voice of one of the people who had been inside the hotel kept saying, "There is blood all over! Blood all over!"
By this point in the ordeal, police didn't even know if they could go in to give assistance to those who were in need of it. Several explosions were still going off. Imagine: 3 days of being trapped in a hotel, and not knowing if this group of younger-looking, irrational and unreasonable religious fundamentalists was going to take my life. I tried to imagine, and it was awful. I imagined being there, barricading the door, hiding under the bed, crying for my mother. I thought of my girlfriend and how sad it would make her if something like this had happened to me. I imagined experiencing the account of a man who was in the building at the time he saw several people drop dead right in front of him. It was difficult enough to try and recreate those accounts, but I knew that my imagination could never do justice to the first hand experiences of those victims. Larry King then said that his time was up, but that CNN would be returning in two hours with extended coverage of the developments there, and that I should not go anywhere. For two hours until then, however, CNN would be airing an encore presentation of Anderson Cooper's Heroes award ceremony... "Wow" I thought to myself. These people really don't give a shit about what they're reporting, or how their reports may affect its viewers.
Needless to say, I was feeling a little bit scared; a little bit vulnerable. I went upstairs to try and wake my girlfriend up and tell her how much it scared me to think of something like that happening to me, but all I did was sort of piss her off. Unable to sleep, I returned to the very thing that induced me with such great anxiety to now deliver me with mindless banter and nonsense: the television.
Just a few channels down from CNN was Conan O'Brien. He was doing some skit about holiday gifts for this year: a vomiting Kermit the Frog and a masturbating Grizzly Bear. The skit, with one absurd gesture leading to another, made me laugh out loud in the exact same spot, where, just minutes earlier, I teared up at the thought of being violated by religious fanatics. This is why I'm writing about the Mumbai attacks: not necessarily because of what had happened, (which was terrible) but the way in which the news media uses words, pictures and gestures in order to conjure up ideas in people's minds. These ideas, however heavily laden they may be with graphic images and the like, are fleeting. All one has to do is flip the channel to be affected from the opposite direction. Such is the nature of our culture and our existence. We watch the news, we hear what is said, we feel for the victims for a moment or two, and we converse over the implications of the unfolded events. We do all of this, and then we flip the channel to laugh at a spring-loaded masturbating bear.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
