Quarter 3 Wrap up

            Ask yourself, if you walked down a street in a big city such as Chicago, what kinds of people would you see sitting on the sides of the streets asking for money? What kind of people would you see? Would they have signs that say, “ Work for food”? Most people will say black people or a different ethnic group besides white people. In society today prejudices and racism have shaped the country in countless ways through out all of American history. In the book The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, there are multiple examples of how racism shaped the country. This book was taken place when the civil rights were going on. When Lily and Rosealeen run away. Lily has to go into the store to buy her food because they would not service black people. This shows that Prejudices for black people back then were huge. The people in the town that Lily lived didn’t even allow black people to vote, the hospitals were segregated, and most of the black people were slaves. How did this shape the country? It gave black people a voice, an opinion and rights. Still to this day there are prejudices and racism going on. In the short story we read called In the American Society the dad who owns the pancake house was unsure about hiring a different race then he was. When a man comes in that looks like he has some miles on him, eyes half shut. The dad hires him but still a little nervous to see what he can do. It turned out he was one of the best workers he had ever had. Prejudices and racism will always be an issue in this country; it has shaped the country in all different ways such as stereotypes and options.

            Growing up in a strict family can be tough especially if you are Ruth in the Book The Color of Water by James McBride. In this book Ruth grows up being the preachers daughter. She always felt like she was trapped there were so many rules. Her family was Jewish and her whole life was devoted to the practices of her faith and not disowning her family. While she was growing up her dad was racist. When Ruth met her first love that was a black man. It was necessary to break all the rules. It wasn’t right for someone to not like a different skin tone. She ran away and never came back. It was wrong for someone to life like that. Her dad also molested her. If she had kept in her ways it would have changed her life completely. This is why she never told her kids about her life. She wanted them to grow up and find out for themselves. She also didn’t want to bring up the past while she was trying to forget it.

EDUCATE YOURSELF!

In the book we are reading called The Color of Water by James McBride, James, the main character, thinks as everyone as equal when he is a little kid. His mom Ruth influences him to thinking that is true. “ It doesn’t have a color,” she said. “God is the color of water. Water doesn’t have a color”(McBride51). Everyday she would tell him to educate himself and she wouldn’t tell him the whole truth. When James went to school he always thought how weird it was that he was the only black boy in the school but to him everything just seemed equal. Ruth, the mother of James, never stopped pushing the fact that he needed to educate himself. “ You’re a human being.” She snapped. “Educate yourself or you’ll be a nobody”(McBride 92)! She never told them about the world and how everyone preserves it. She wanted them to figure it out for them self’s. This relates to common life because how you’re brought up shows how you will be when you’re older. When people are brought up thinking that black people are bad. They will always think that. I think that Ruth is trying to get the kids to find out for them self and be their own person. When Ruth was brought up she was part of a Jewish family and they were very strict. She hated every minute of it. That is why she is letting her kids figure out what they want to see the world as. She doesn’t want them to end up like her. This connects to my friend’s life in a way she was brought up in a strict family and they were very strict about there religion but now she’s in collage and she left all of her strict traditions behind herm and moved on and swears that she will never bring up a family like the one that brought her up.

In the Book S.L.O.B Rosaleen shows in many ways her comfort with being colored. "Rosaleen lifted her snuff jug, which was filled with black spit, and calmly poured it across the top of the men's shoes, moving her hand in little loops like she was writing her name Rosaleen daise-just the way she practiced."(Bees32) This action was one of the many she did in that fight showing she doesn’t care what her skin color is. In the Short story "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" Zora Neale Hurston, portrays being colored as proud. She says "No one on earth ever had a greater change for glory. The World to be won and nothing lost. It is thrilling to think_ to know that for any act of mine, I shall get twice as much praise or twice as much blame."(Hurston) She says this because white people looked at colored people back then and gave them no respect "Where're you going nigger?"(Bees 31) When Hutston says twice as much praise or twice as much respect, She means no white person thought black people would act or thought that colored people had the guts to actually go and resister to vote. If they suspected they would get all the glory and it would be an accomplishment and when they failed they would get twice the blame. This also relates to "The letters to Birmingham jail". When he talks about him standing up for black rights and when he gets put in jail he gets all the praise from the fellow followers. A lot of colored people still to day are protective of their race or color and they won't take any mistreatment or anything from white folks.

Black vs. White

The week we read chapter 3,4,5 in the book The Secret of Bees. In these chapters Lilly finally gets to work with August in the beehive August shares some stories about the families past time. August explains how May had a twin named April.April shot her self. When she was 11 she wanted to get an ice cream cone and when she did the man told her she couldn’t eat it inside. This made her upset. She then went in to a deep depression and shot herself because of all the segregation that was going on around her.

When this happened May was torn by this news and she now cries every time she hears a bad story about someone getting hurt. August and June wanted to help her out so they made a wall that she can go to and pray for the souls that are lost.

            When June finds out that Lilly is lying and tells August that they shouldn’t trust her because she is white. Lilly is distraught she thought that only black people get prejudice comments. From this passage I can concur that black people also felt a racist vibe toward white people. To them white people are mean, its stereotypical because not every white person hated blacks. Back then it was blacks vs. white both trying to get their say on something or how they should be treated. It was only in 1960 when they gave black youth a place in the movement racial organized led by Stakly Carmichael “ Black Power”. There were many of movements and organizations going on at this time. Some of the groups were bad ones that had to deal with more aggressive ways to get their point across leading to the idea that all white people are distrustful. In times today there are still segregation issues, for example even places as small as high schools have cliques that form based on color.

Secret Life of bees

                            We started off this semester with a short story called Letters from Birmingham jail. It was about Martin Luther King writing letters to all of the people that didn’t believe in what he believed in. Martin Luther King believed in black rights and civil rights. Back in 1957 he got elected Southern Christian Leadership Conference and provided rights for the movement of the black rights laws that were going on.(Martin Luther King - Biography ) After reading this I realized how much our world has changed and that the segregation of blacks vs. whites is gone. Some people in the society still are racists toward black people some examples of that would be that the thought of intercity kids. We automatically think of black people. I don’t think its right to stereotype black people. My family on my mom’s side was very racist I’m glad that I was raised to treat everyone equally, the way people should be treated no matter what color there skin is. Now, we are reading the book The Secret Life of Bees. In the first chapter of this book I can already tell what our topic for English will be for the rest of the year. The first chapter was about a small family that owned a peach farm. The mom died in the story, and they have a black lady named Rosaleen, that takes care of the family. When Rosaleen goes into town to resister to vote they tell her that she can’t because she’s colored. When she walks out of the place she gets arrested for doing so. This book relates to class and the short story Letters from Birmingham jail because it has to deal with black rights, it all happened around the same time frame. I believe that all people no matter what color your skin is should have rights the color of your skin doesn’t change the person you are.

MLA style: "Martin Luther King - Biography". Nobelprize.org. 3 Feb 2011 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1964/king-bio.html

 

( image from googleimagies.com)

Truth?

When Reading The Things They Carried, my teacher told us that it was historical fiction, and that only some parts of the book were true. I started reading this and thought it was a good book. Much of the war stories such as “Sweet Heart of the song Tra Bong” and “The Man I Killed” were both of my favorite war chapters. We watched a video of Tim O’Brien talking about his book; he read out loud the chapter “Ambush” and told us that most of the words and people in that chapter were not real. He did not have a daughter named Kathleen and he didn’t kill the man with a hand grenade. This part bothered me while listening to Tim O’Brien speak what seemed to be true stories I realized that not everything in the book was real.

While he was talking about the book not being real, he went on to say that he did not lie about what happened but merely didn’t tell the whole truth or leave some parts out. He said, “If I said I was going to the store to buy cereal and I left that would be the truth but if I said I was going to the store to buy cereal robed the place and left that would be the truth also I just left out the part about me robbing it.” When he said this it made me think, if he was saying that you aren’t lying when you’re telling the half-truth. What have people been saying in society? What aren’t they telling us or only telling half of us. Did man really land on the moon? What about all the other war storybooks that are out there are they all true about the war?

I felt like this was an eye opener when he says “This is True” (Pg 67) he told the reader how to tell a true war story from a fake one he says, “A true war story is never moral, it doesn’t instruct, nor encourage virtue, no suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done.”(Pg68) War stories are going to end and not make sense. The Men in these wars will do crazy things because of it, it affects them emotionally.

Tim O’ Brien is trying to make a point in this book. It doesn’t matter whether it is fiction or not his point in the book is to tell the reader emotionally what they carried. Such as grief, loss, loved ones…etc. Some of the stories are to prove a point that war isn’t just the physical aspect but also the emotional and mental parts that are tough. In the chapter “The Man I Killed”(Pg124) He tells us, “his father and two uncles and many neighbors had joined in the struggle for independence. He was not a communist. He was a citizen and a solider.”(Pg125) Tim O’Brien didn’t really know the solider he killed, all of those details he says in those parts aren’t real.  The reason he put those deails in the story were to tell the reader that war isn’t all about killing people or “The enemy” It shows you that war brainwashed you to think that “The enemy” is nothing more then an object, not a person, but a target.

                  In ten years I want to be Studying fashion I want to go to a fashion school in Chicago. I have always wanted to go somewhere in the city. I think clothes and fashion really show who I am and my personality. After College I want to work for teen vogue magazine I love putting outfits together. I haven’t been putting school as my first priority and if I want to get far in life I need to start to study more and focus. My sophomore year I really got off track. Now this junior year I have to start being more school orientated. Going to college is want I want to do. When Mrs. Forster said that now society is saying that a college diploma is just like getting a high school diploma just shows how our economy is doing. I don’t want to end up working two jobs at minimum wage and just barely getting by. I work a minimum job right now, if I had to live off of what I made I wouldn’t be able to make it through life. When Barbra Ehrenrich was talking about how impossible it is to make a living off of 5.25 and hour I don’t want to be barely getting by I want to have extra to spare.

            Another job I would want to be doing in ten years would be in the field of crime. I Love watching CSI and crime scene investigations would be very interesting and cool to do. Again I would have to go to college and focus on school if I want to get that far. And I do admit my grades aren’t the best right now and I could do so much more and if I want to get far in life or even complete these goals it all starts now. I know that I colleges start looking at applications and grades are going to reflect if I get in to a good college or if I even get in at all. I’m going to have to work hard this year to keep my grades up if I want any of these dreams to happen.