Blair Holt Bill

Over spring break I did not have the opportunity to participate in Alternative Spring Break but a friend of mine did. Her name is Diamond, she is from Detroit Michigan. She participated in Alternative Spring Break in my home town of Chicago, Illinois. Her job there was to pass a bill that would help negate the ever increasing activities involving gun violence which has been tearing the city apart. Many people have died because of the senseless acts involving gun violence within the pass few years, many innocent have died for no reason at all. The name of the bill they are passing was named after Blair Holt. Blair Holt attended Julian High School on the South Side of Chicago. One day after school, he was gunned down on his bus on the way home. He jumped in front of a bullet meant for someone else. He is a hero. Though I did not know Blair personally, I have several friends that were really close to him. It is evident how great of a person he was when I hear my friends talking about him. It is amazing how many lives he touched before he was murdered. It greatly saddens me when I see so much talent and such a good, soulful person life get taken away. They say the good die young. The increase in murders by gun violence is greatly increasing. It seems as though a Chicago Public School student is killed every other week. I pray that this bill gets passed in the memory of Blair Holt. http://sports.espn.go.com/outdoors/hunting/news/story?id=3899236

Good Hair

As I was growing up, I would often hear people; mostly African American females talk about hair. The god compare hair, to the female, hair is very important to her. They take pride in their hair. Many conversations about hair have come up as I was going through school. The hottest topics about hair were the “good hair” conversation. What is good hair?! Is there a thing as bad hair? To some, good hair is long straight hair. To others, its curly hair, the kind that often comes from people who are mixed. Sometime if an interracial couple were to walk past, one may here a somewhat ignorant remark such as “Their baby is going to have that good hair.” In high school, if a male were to have thicker, nappy hair, it would be bad hair. If one were to have slicker, softer, wavy hair, it would be deemed good hair. Bell Hooks spoke on this issue and how she believed that many people were changing their hair and hair methods to confirm to what white America was doing. I disagree; I see great diversity amongst hair styles as far as African Americans. Many people have different opinions on what is good hair. Even in Chris Rock's documentary on good hair, it came to be that everyone had different opinions on what good hair was. To some, it was nautural hair, to some it was permed, to others it was the indian hair. We are all different individuals with different taste, that is what makes us all so great.

August Wilson Interview

August Wilson was asked “How do you feel about schools and self education?” Wilson replied “The schools are horrible, and don’t teach anybody anything.” Today, schools are worse than ever. Schools, especially public schools were never deigned for the advanced student. They were often understaffed and unequipped with learning materials. As a result, the majority of students received a poor quality education, and this was only for the averages students. The more advanced, more intelligent student, such as August Wilson, often butted heads with his or her teacher. They were largely ignored because the advanced student was a minority and the average students demanded more attention. With the intelligent students being so advanced, most basic lessons and concepts did not hold their attention. The lack of attention caused the intelligent student to feel out casted and some end up dropping out like in August Wilson’s case. The public education system is horrible. Not only do the problems of the past still exists, low funding, lack of materials, over worked/underpaid teachers, but now we have more problems such as drugs, gang, and gun violence. The drop out rates is higher and the graduation rates are lower than ever, especially amongst public high schools. Greg Toppo of USA TODAY reports “Students in a handful of big-city school districts have a less than 50-50 chance of graduating from high school with their peers, and a few cities graduate far fewer than half each spring, according to research released on Tuesday. Fourteen urban school districts have on-time graduation rates lower than 50%; they include Detroit, Baltimore, New York, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas, Denver and Houston. Among the nation's 50 largest districts, the study finds, three graduate fewer than 40%: Detroit (21.7%), Baltimore (38.5%) and New York City (38.9%).” Many large public schools are not having success teaching their young students.

Revolutionary Struggle

Revolutionary Struggle is a small account of Assata Shakur’s experiences while she was apart of the Black Liberation Army. The overall goal of the Black Liberation Army was to fight against and eventually diminish capitalism and imperialism in the country. When Shakur initially joint the Black Liberation Army, she was surprised to find that there was no centralized organization or chain of command within the organization. There was no main leadership. Instead of a common leader, there were various organizations spread throughout the country. The lack of organization proved to be problem as organization for a common goal came to be a difficult task. Many people that were apart of the revolution and apart of the organization were hiding because of extreme police oppression. Everyone wanted the same goal, but since there were so many branches of the revolutionary army, in so many places, with so many different people and no common leadership, no one knew how to go about achieving their goal. Different groups had different ideologies, different levels of political consciousness, and different ideas about how armed struggle in America should be waged. The lack of leadership and direction made the Black Liberation Army weak. What the Black Liberation Army did have was dedicated and courageous soldiers that were ready to lay their lives on the line and fight their oppressors to the death. This was not enough. Strategy had to be developed. Armed struggle was never successful by itself; it has to be supported by the masses of the people. This was also a difficult task because the Black Liberation Army had no control to any media outlets; therefore they were often portrayed as terrorist or monsters. The scale was always tilted in the oppositions favor. What Shakur soon learned was that Revolutionary war was a war that has to be won overtime. Overnight victory doesn’t exist in Revolution. Revolution is a war that is won little by little. Much thought a planning has to be invested in it in order to successfully achieve a common goal. Even though many of those in the Black Liberation Army has the impulse to want to fight back violently and without planning, they realized that that would be an ill-advised plan of attack and would probably only hurt the cause. Shakur said that “Revolutionary struggle is scientific rather than emotional.” Decisions should not be based on love or anger.

Excuse Me, Your Race is Showing

Excuse Me, Your Race is Showing speaks on how Caucasian people look down on, and expect less from African American people. The author Karen Grigsby Bates has a friend who is less offended by being called the “N-word” and more offended by being called articulate. Bates’ friend speaks King’s English very well and finds himself on the receiving end of compliments of white people, but in actuality, they can really be taken as offensive comments. White people’s perception of African Americans are very low, they believe that we are not capable of advanced intellectual skills. African Americans are often looked down upon, prejudged, and aren’t expected to contribute much to anything unless it is serving a white person. Often times, white people can would treat everyday African Americans, or successful African Americans for that matter, as servants. There have been many stories of how an African American man had been mistaken for a valet parker by a white man. There are many other similar stories. Why do Caucasian people continue to undermine and underestimate African Americans when we have accomplished so much, proved so much, and done so much for this country? We have come so far as a people, yet we are still underappreciated and overlooked.

Too much time on "The Book"

I was just attempting to do my homework and I found that I kept referring back to facebook and twitter. This is insane; it is almost like an addiction sometimes. Are social networking sites becoming an increasingly interval part of our everyday lives? Is it playing too large a role in our lives? Most times I am able to control myself but I know many people that can’t even function if they are allowed to get on facebook, twitter, or any other social network. They can forget about doing work, they will often find themselves going back to facebook within minutes of beginning their work. I never noticed all the negatives that came along with facebook. Someone on Yahoo.com answers asked “What are the negatives that come along with facebook?” Someone replied
• -It is extremely addictive especially since they changed it so you can see everything your friends do and you just keep joining groups and becoming fans of things.
-Even if I have homework due the next day i go on facebook instead it's that addictive
-Fights with friends
-Privacy
-Jealousy over amount of friends
-Some people get carried away changing their status every hour and it gets really annoying
-People taking loads of pictures of themselves
-1 comment on yur status/post/wall/photo can turn into a whole conversation that yur not even involved in
There's loads more
I love facebook but totally agree with everything everyones said :DD

I found all of these to be true, or can possibly become true. There are a lot of positives and a lot of negatives that comes with social networking sites. Do the positives outweigh the negatives?

Blackness

The section I read in Revelations seemed to focus on the word “Black” or “Blackness” and how it is defined and what the mass perception of it is. From my readings and personal experience, to do something “Black” or “Blackness” is not always the most positive thing. To do something black is most commonly viewed as a positive notion when referring to physical ability, sexual ability, and entertainment ability. The example that William Raspberry gave in “The Handicap of Definition” is that if a basketball fan said that the Boston Celtics Larry Bird played basketball like a black man, Bird would more than likely accept it as a compliment. On the opposite end, if one were to tell a white reporter that he writes like a black man, he would more than likely sign up for diction lessons. It is not the fact that the connotations that come along with “Blackness” are negative; it is just that it is too narrow of a definition. Blackness is more than physical ability, sexual prowess and rhythm. Why it is that blackness is placed in a small box with narrow definitions and connotations, when whiteness is given a much more important, meaning. With whiteness comes a sense of responsibility and importance. For example, if a black boy were to have great study habits, he might be made fun of by other black kids by accusing him of being white. If a black kid used correct English, he would be called white. If a black kid played with educational games such as scrabble as opposed to video games, he could be called white. All things that seem beneficial to the human race can be seen as white, or Chinese, or Jewish but things that are unimportant and only holds entertainment value are actions of “Blackness” The color white and black display similar meanings. In “The English Language is My Enemy” Ossie Davis looked in Roget’s Thesaurus of the English Language and revealed that the word “Whiteness” had 134 synonyms. Out of those 134, 44 were favorable. They included words such as purity, cleanness, immaculateness, bright etc. Only 10 definitions out of 134 appeared to have negative implications, “Gloss over, whitewash, gray, wan, pale etc.” When Ossie Davis looked up the word “Blackness” he discovered that there were 120 synonyms and 60 of them were distinctly unfavorable, none of them were even mildly positive. Amongst synonyms included were “Blot, blotch, smut, smudge, sully, evil, wicked etc.” Ossie Davis suggested that “Any teacher good or bad, white or black, Jew or Gentile, who uses the English Language as a medium of communication is forced willy-nilly to teach the Negro child 60 ways to despise himself and the white child 60 ways to aid and abet in the crime. This can be a contributing factor as to why “Blackness” isn’t perceived in great light, why it is downplayed. We don’t think about the definition much, but even subconsciously blackness is not seen as a positive thing.