Everything Changes Optimistically

Brooker T.Washington's speech in my opinion is directed toward African Americans. The speech provides a complete different perspective on segregation and it is one that suddenly gives hope to those who are considered inferior. Cast Down Your Bucket. In other words, make the best of the opportunities you have around you, even if you didn't start at the top of the pyramid.

Make friends with those surrounding you. Unfortunately, our society is one in which people do tend to favour those who are liked. Blacks at the time were at the bottom of the pyramid but not necessarily unliked by everyone. In Washington's perspective, African Americans still had plenty of opportunities in the industry. After all, who was going to do all the work?

Admirable. Blacks were at the bottom of the pyramid, were basically considered worthless yet Washington gives hope to each and every one of them by showing them exactly how many opportunities they had and how without them, the industry was nothing.

Eternal Social Structures

The Dead family is a rich black family living in the United States. Do they have the same privileges when compared to a rich white family? No.

Why is this?

Definition of social structure: in sociology, stable arrangement of institutions whereby human beings in a society interact and live together. Social structure is often treated together with the concept of social change, which deals with the forces that change the social structure and the organization of society. (Dictionary.com)

The social structure at the time was one in which Blacks belonged in the bottom of the pyramid, whites at the top. Blacks were associated with being poor, inferior, and basically useless. Only a very small part of them were successful or rich, but still definitely not considered equal. Why? 

Because society bases it's opinions on stereotypes. Blacks were supposed to be useless and inferior so every time they saw a black person they'd consider them exactly this. 

Now, many people think thats all in the past but it really isn't. In the U.S. and probably in more places around the world if a white person and a black person are both applying for a job the employer is most likely to accept the white person. Why? Because stereotypes stick. 

There has been social change since organization has varied tremendously with the years and segregation is no longer an issue, but this doesn't mean that people are still treated as equals. If it's not discrimination against blacks it's against women and if it's not this it's against gay rights, etc. 

 Will there ever be a change in the way people view those surrounding them? In the way they constantly judge or create false labels  that lead to stereotypes?  

How Do You Know It's True?

I found many similarities between chapters K, m, and N of Reality Hunger and "Brief Lives." The greatest similarity I found was the fact that in both pieces we can see how extremely unreliable a memoir can be. Shields states that we usually don't question memoirs but that for all we know, someone could very well base their memoirs on pure lies. How do we know that in "Brief Lives" the information that was told in the interviews or on the back of post it notes actually did happen? Why do we not doubt these stories and believe everything we hear or read about? 

Well, it's because these simple stories fit into our notion of reality. The stories to us seem both possible and real, but then again, what is real? We believe what we think can happen, what we think did happen. Think about it, why would you every doubt in a person that is telling a story that is completely  plausible? 

This left me thinking until I realized that everyone chooses to believe in different things based on their notion of reality. This is an absurd example but if someone thinks that pigs may fly and another person tells them that they have indeed seen a pig fly then the story will probably be versatile to our believer. On the contrary, if this same narrator tells his experience to a person that doesn't believe in this then that person will be sure it's a lie. Therefore, our notion of reality directly affects our perception of what is true. 

The Originality of Nothingness

Veracious Fragments

"Genre is a minimum-security prison." (pg. 70)

What is a minimum- security prison? Well, a prison you can easily get out off. A prison in which you can move within the cells with no problem and have freedom. I like to think that when you right you can explore the different ways of writing. For example, if you write fiction you don't necessarily have to stick to one style of writing fiction, you can jump around. In fact, you can even incorporate many different styles within a piece. part from that a writer doesn't necessarily have to be known for writing in one specific genre. They can get out of this genre prison and express themselves writing in a variety of genres. The thing is sometimes writers prefer staying in these minimum-security prisons because it's safer inside.

"We're overwhelmed right now by calamitous information.The real overwhelms the fictional, is incomparable more compelling than an invented drama." (pg. 82) 

Whenever I am interested in reading a book I usually chose something that is indeed based on a true story. It makes it all the more interesting. Maybe its the fact that as we read we become more enthusiastic knowing that most of the details of what we're reading actually did happen. That the story of this text is not far from reality and is not only possible but real. It's a fact. Sure, there are some novels and fiction pieces that are extremely well written and very interesting but, to me at least, it is sometimes disappointing to know that what you'rereading about it only a fragment of an author's imagination, nonrealistic, nonexistent.

"Facts have gravitas." (pg. 86)

Facts are often associated with seriousness, meaning they will always be real. We choose to believe what seems most real to us, therefore we automatically choose to believe facts. But could a fact not be real? Does that make it not a fact? According to dictionary.com a fact is something that actually exists; reality; truth. A fact is real. A fact is not a fact if it never occurred.

French Influence On English

I feel that the grade I got was adequate. This is because once I reread my paper I did realize that it definitely had too much exposition and not a lot of analyzing. Some of the paragraphs in my paper weren't objective but I didn't really rush the paper.

I think I might have misunderstood what the objective of the assignment was because I did try to connect the things that I read about in my investigation such as stating what patterns I noticed with the words deriving from the French Language. Once I read Gabriela's paper and listened to the insight on my paper I realized that I definitely should have done a narrower topic. That could have been a reason why my paper turned out more expository than analytical, there was just too much information to analyze closely.

Difficult or not?

At first when I read that we had to investigate one thing that Shields alludes I thought this was going to be very difficult. I thought this because many times we don't even realize that the author is actually alluding while we read and I thought I was going to have to pay extreme close attention to the reading and google just about every word. I'm not saying that I didn't pay close attention but I definitely did not close read all the time because the Shields way of writing is actually very direct and it's nearly impossible to miss when he alludes.

A book that shows up constantly in Shields writing is the Iliad. Of course it does, as he states it, it's one of the first masterpieces that have been written. This caught my attention because In 9th grade the first book I had to read for Pre-AP Spanish was the Iliad. I remember I thought that I would never understand the book and that I was going to definitely need to read Spark Notes or in this case Rincondelvago once I finished, but I was wrong. Despite the years it has The Iliad, by Homer, actually ended up being one of my favourite books and well although at times it may be a tough read, it's understandable.

I therefore decided to do more research on this book because I realized that I not only read it, but I also read about it in many other texts yet I never really knew much about it's author or historical context. Obviously homecoming does appear a lot in the Iliad but I had no idea that this was an actual theme that was common among Greek Literature. This theme is actually referred to as Nostos and is one that shows up both in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Another Greek theme that I also had no idea about is Kleos, the concept of glory earned in heroic battle.

I then realized that, although it seems pretty obvious, it's extremely helpful to conduct an investigation over a book that you're reading. This is due to the fact that many times we read books independently (by this I mean not with a class) and we just don't discuss them. When this occurs we sometimes don't understand the historical context of this book or the true importance of it, meaning that we have not taken full advantage of the reading.

Manifestos

What is a Manifesto? According to Dictionary.com a manifesto is a public declaration of intentions, opinions, objectives, or motives as one issued by a government, sovereign, or organization. It comes from the Italian word manifestare, which means to manifest.

In the Futurist Manifesto we can clearly see that there is a manifestation of ideas, of a new way of thinking. The manifesto describes a transformation in the way of thinking, which involves the leaving behind of mythology and other "absurd" ideas. This transition also involves the leaving behind of the mathematical point of view of the world. The Futurist Manifesto, to me, is all about either adapting to these new ideas or getting screwed by them. A world of science and technology is going to take place and innovation is unpreventable.

Reality Hunger is much more literal than the Futurist Manifesto. David Shields states directly that what he will refer to an Art Revolution in his book. In this Manifesto, Shields will explain how each artist demonstrates what he/she depicts of reality in each of his/her pieces. Artists are realists.

After reading both pieces I realized that a Manifesto doesn't necessarily have to be famous or known amongst many people. A Manifesto could be a simple statements that implies a change in the way of thinking or perspective over a subject. Over anything.

Traditions

"Edward Armstrong. The Story of English Episode 5. YouTube.com. 27 Aug. 2009.

"White American language and culture owe much to the blacks." This starting phrase of Episode 5 reminded me of a musical I once went to in Alaska called Hairspray. When I was younger Hairspray was my favourite movie just because people would sing and dance, but I never truly understood the  importance of it. Not only is seeing John Travolta dressed up as a lady hilarious, but Hairspray is also a clear example of how Blacks have influenced the White American culture.

Hairspray is a movie about this popular television show, which is known as being the typical white people show. There is one exception. On Wednesdays this show has something called Negro Days in which only African Americans participate. After several weeks of trying to unite these two cultures the main character accomplishes it. Due to blacks inferiority at the time we would have thought that these Blacks had to adapt to the White American culture and way of singing, but on the contrary. The majority of the show ended up representing African American culture.

So how has African American culture influenced us? There is one simple example that we see everywhere: Jazz. This style of music actually originated in the South where most African Americans were and is now a huge part of American popular music. We hear it everywhere.

As the video says, there are also many words that have been incorporated into White American language that have come from African American culture. I did some further research on this out of curiosity to see what words we use today that have come from this culture. Unfortunately I found absolutely nothing useful. The only "Black" words that I found after my research were: gansta, bling, grills, hang, hood, benjamins, threads, aight, holla. crib, playa, and straight. How pathetic.

Sure, I found it funny at first, but then I realized how actually disrespectful this is. Black culture has become something that today is represented by people such as Lil Wayne or rappers similar to him, but we don't realize that this culture actually has a history and a history that has affected our white culture significantly.

Mixed Up Languages

"Edward Armstrong. The Story of English Episode 2. YouTube.com. 27 Aug. 2009."

 Throughout the years people have unquestionably been moving around the world. This explains exactly why English is such a common language. Yet again, it is strange for someone to hear English as a pure language for it is no longer this. People have adapted English to their cultures and have mixed it with their own language creating a new accent or in some cases a mixture of both their native language and english as can be seen with the Welsh. "The characteristics of the English spoken by the Welsh are the rolled r, the clear vowels, the hesitant consonants and the lilting inflections." 

"Only 20% of the population now claim Welsh as a first language." Once a language has been adapted to a culture the native language is sometimes forgotten. This reminds me of how many natives isolate themselves from civilization because they want to keep their language and their traditions. After all, language is a huge part of culture and losing it is like losing a huge chunk of who you are and what your ancestors stood for. The best solution is to not isolate yourself from society, but rather keep your traditions while you still introduce new ones, but then again, is this even possible? 

"Every single word you hear is descendent from Old English." This explains exactly why there are so many languages that have similar words. Most of them derive from latin and adapt Old English. The languages don't have identical words, but some of these sound so much alike that we can tell what their meaning is. 

Something that we sometimes can't help but notice is how many people do not understand word order or grammer and therefore say something that they actually don't mean. Many joke about this and find it  hilarious how a person can actually say something offensive or completely blunt by doing this, but they don't realize how far these errors can get to actually ruining opportunities for those who make them. For example, grammer errors in a week report for your boss can actually make your work completely useless and foul for your position. 

Most of us don't understand the importance of language and it's history, but mastering it can actually be life changing and also allows us to comprehend the history of many cultures. 

The Universality of English

"Edward Armstrong. The Story of English Episode 1." YouTube.com. 27 Aug. 2009."  

English is all around the world. That is unquestionable. When we buy a new object that requires instructions we will almost always find instructions in English. Why is this? It has become a universal language. It's just everywhere. A huge cause for this is colonialism. For example, in The Story of English Episode 1 we learn that in India knowing English is basically a necessity. Men desire women that know English and people each day are becoming more and more dependent on the language. India was a British colony and the presence of them definitely had an impact when it came to shaping the country. If the British would've never settled in India would the language still be the main one spoken? It could be, but colonialism unquestionably impacted India. 

English is spoken differently in almost every country you visit. When I was younger, I lived in London and basically grew up speaking and hearing British English. In fact, it became my first language as I forgot how to speak Spanish and would pretty much ignore anyone who asked me to practice my spanish. I remember that in school, the teachers would criticize anyone who would come speaking English in a different accent because there are marked differences between each accent. Many use these differences as a tool for discrimination, but in my opinion aren't these what make every culture unique? 

In fact, English is not just spoken differently in each country, but there are different accents within countries, especially in the United States. A clear example of this is the difference between a Texan accent and a Jersey one. 

English is also used as a tool for distinguishing class. As I watched the documentary I realized how Clueless, a movie by Amy Heckerling, portrays a scene of how English is spoken amongst different social classes. In the documentary, a Hindu girl begins to speak about how English represented education and class, which relates to what Alicia Silverstone represents in the movie. "English represents class whether it really is class or no." 


Another topic covered in this episode of the documentary is the importance of English for a child's future. All around the world, parents are striving to provide the opportunity so that their child may learn a second language. Being bilingual nowadays is a huge advantage and especially if one of those languages spoken is one of the main ones as is English. Think about it, if you are hiring someone you will probably want to hire someone who speaks more than one language and properly for higher positions.