I need to work on my attitude. Anyone who knows me can vouch for that because there's no denying that I can be a really negative person. I mean, I wouldn't exactly consider myself a pessimist, but if you were to have me look at that metaphorical glass of who knows what, the first thing I'd point out is that I wasn't getting my money's worth. We don't need to get picky with words to figure out that I'm still going to be thirsty. And we'll say that that makes me a realist, okay? That's fair.
Anyway, the point in my saying that was to highlight that, yet again, my poor outlook managed to hinder my ability to dive into a book with an open mind. In quite the same way that finding out that The Things They Carried was about war made me less eager to read the book, stumbling through the first few pages of The Great Gatsby, my eyes getting wider and my annotations becoming more confounded as each additional paragraph supplied more confusion, had a similar effect. However, after discovering how much I loved Tim O'Brien's novel, I should have been able to predict that my astonishing ability to wrongly assess how much I'll enjoy a book based on just one aspect of it would rear its ugly head once more.
And so, after just a week (not even, actually) of reading, I have already found it necessary to admit that I misjudged The Great Gatsby and see myself liking it the more I read it. Mind you, it's by no means my favorite book after just a few chapters, but I'm developing more respect for it than I anticipated I would. Fitzgerald has a really fantastic way with words--a way of making me smile to myself when I read it and write one too many annotations that read "haha" or "beautiful".
Also, I find myself relating a lot to Nick already, if that even seems feasible. We don't get to read much about Nick as a character, but just by taking in his reactions to the situations he encounters or noting the subtle quirks and humor in the text, we can get a pretty good feel for his personality already. I seem to think along the same lines as him, for the most part, which is a nice change of pace from getting flustered and angered by what happens in my Multi-cultural Literature book (which is chock-full of injustice, rodeos, and death). I'm not quite sure yet if Fitzgerald structured his book in a way that makes everyone feel connected with Nick (thoughts anyone?) or if it's just a me (and, apparently, Andrew) thing, but regardless, it's working with the mystery of Gatsby to keep me sufficiently interested.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Weekly Blog #10: Way to go, Benny
After a week or so reading articles that, in my opinion, could be classified as "just okay", I found Benjamin Franklin's piece "Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America" to be an interesting and refreshing change. His viewpoint seemed to counter those of the other authors we read regarding the same or a similar subject without being harsh or uncivil, and I was definitely a fan of that.
I thought it was really fantastic that Franklin was finally able to make it known how decent, tolerant, and respectful the Native Americans could be, thus making a huge yet subtle point in a calm and rational way. He made the elitist and racist ideals of early colonists look ridiculous and left little room for argument against his statements. Crafting this argument essentially required almost no effort on his part simply because it was an undeniable byproduct of choosing to write about the truth, and it is because of this fact that his argument was made even stronger.
I especially loved the recount of the interaction between the Swedish minister and the chiefs of the Susquehanah Native Americans. It was such a good point and a perfect reflection of the ignorance of the times to include the Native American's quote: "My brother, it seems your friends have not done you justice in your education; they have not well instructed you in the rules of common civility. You saw that we, who understand and practice those rules, believed all your stories; why do you refuse to believe ours?"
Speaking of education, it was also a truly beautiful thing to me that Franklin included the portion about how the early colonists offered to take Native American children into their schools to teach them how to be "worthy men", yet they rejected the Native Americans' offer to take white children into Native American society to learn how to be "worthy men" by their standards. This explanation of the occurrence did a wonderful job of highlighting the unfair way that colonists refused to hold the Native American customs as high as their own--to reciprocate the respect of differences that the Native Americans had offered to them.
On a whole (wow. . .how clichéd can I get?), this article was really enjoyable for me because Franklin finally addressed the facts that others writing about this topic failed (intentionally) to shed any light on. It was a much needed expression of the truth and helped to give Native Americans some of the credit that they were so often denied. I am sure that if I'd read this piece when it was originally created, I would have had my thoughts completely altered (assuming that they did not already follows these lines), and I am convinced that there is no way it didn't have an affect on the opinions of anyone who really did read it during that time.
I thought it was really fantastic that Franklin was finally able to make it known how decent, tolerant, and respectful the Native Americans could be, thus making a huge yet subtle point in a calm and rational way. He made the elitist and racist ideals of early colonists look ridiculous and left little room for argument against his statements. Crafting this argument essentially required almost no effort on his part simply because it was an undeniable byproduct of choosing to write about the truth, and it is because of this fact that his argument was made even stronger.
I especially loved the recount of the interaction between the Swedish minister and the chiefs of the Susquehanah Native Americans. It was such a good point and a perfect reflection of the ignorance of the times to include the Native American's quote: "My brother, it seems your friends have not done you justice in your education; they have not well instructed you in the rules of common civility. You saw that we, who understand and practice those rules, believed all your stories; why do you refuse to believe ours?"
Speaking of education, it was also a truly beautiful thing to me that Franklin included the portion about how the early colonists offered to take Native American children into their schools to teach them how to be "worthy men", yet they rejected the Native Americans' offer to take white children into Native American society to learn how to be "worthy men" by their standards. This explanation of the occurrence did a wonderful job of highlighting the unfair way that colonists refused to hold the Native American customs as high as their own--to reciprocate the respect of differences that the Native Americans had offered to them.
On a whole (wow. . .how clichéd can I get?), this article was really enjoyable for me because Franklin finally addressed the facts that others writing about this topic failed (intentionally) to shed any light on. It was a much needed expression of the truth and helped to give Native Americans some of the credit that they were so often denied. I am sure that if I'd read this piece when it was originally created, I would have had my thoughts completely altered (assuming that they did not already follows these lines), and I am convinced that there is no way it didn't have an affect on the opinions of anyone who really did read it during that time.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Weekly Blog #9: We've Changed, But Are We Different?
I had a really difficult time getting this blog post started because, in all honesty, the readings from the last few weeks left me rather uninspired. I wanted my own spin on what we'd read about, but I couldn't come up with anything that didn't sound really similar to what everyone else had already written. However, I now believe that I've formed an original enough collection of thoughts based on an interpretation and application that, up until the weekend before last, I hadn't developed.
Though I'm grateful to finally have a topic for my blog post, I would trade that and about a million other things to have not have experienced the incident that led to this inspiration. Events essentially played out as follows:
Of all things I could have been doing with my weekend, I had chosen to sign on to Facebook early Friday night. Upon entering the site, one of the first "recent activities" in my "news feed" was that of a boy in my grade using his "status" to explain quite harshly his dislike of the decision of one of his favorite musical artists to sing a song with another obviously less enjoyable (at least to this individual) artist. The status had received some feedback from the Facebook community, all of which came from this individual's friends and all of which were sentiments of agreement, and for whatever reason I decided read these comments.
Instant regret. The first word I saw was "gay" followed shortly by context that I already knew I'd hate. These boys (all of them, boys), these ignorant, insensitive, intolerant boys, spewed that formerly innocent word like their lives depended on it, leaving a sickening trail of negative connotations behind it as their words blazed down my computer screen. And they did it in ways I wasn't exactly expecting. While some were obviously using the word to express that the artist's choice to do this duet was stupid, others were actually implying that doing the song together qualified this artist as a homosexual and that that was a bad thing.
Reading this made me sick and it made me angry. So angry. So I did something. The only thing I could think to do: write my own comment asking them not to use the word like that. I ignored the idea that it wasn't my place or my business. In anger, it just was.
And do you know how they responded? They fed off of that comment like maggots on a carcass. They were fueled by it--inspired maybe. And their comments got nastier, sometimes aimed directly at me. I was disgusted. I had honestly expected more, if only a very little bit more, from them, people of this time period--of this generation, who I was quickly realizing I had little more than age in common with.
But it did really get me thinking.
And you're probably wondering how I managed to relate it to anything we read last week, and, to be honest, you might still have questions by the time I'm done. . .but I'm willing to take that risk.
I actually ended up thinking about the piece of writing we read by Valerie Babb, "Crafting Whiteness in Early America", from her book Whiteness Visible after I was so generously provided the extreme displeasure of this experience. In the chapter and the entire book, Babb explains the history behind the values and customs that created whiteness in the United States. According to Babb "whiteness" was partially defined by identifying other races, usually negatively, to show, rather, what "white" wasn't instead of what it really was.
This basic process of forming a concept of any sort of group by defining another first is still incredibly prevalent in America. In fact, as my situation proved (at least to me), this means of label-making is much more frequently applied and is applied to so many different things other than race these days.
The boys who said these terrible things were prime examples of not only disrespecting a group of individuals that are (apparently) so unlike them but also of incorrectly using one group of people to describe another. Though the insolence to homosexuals is what bothered me most about the situation, it was something a little different that proved Babb's point in this new time. These boys had taken their closed-minded, ill-formed knowledge of a collection of people to help them define "rightness" of the conduct of musical artists like that mentioned in the status, "wrongness" being defined as homosexuality.
And so, I have to ask. . .how different are we? What are we all about now? Times have changed as have people, opinions, and norms. But, Babb's concept of this form of definition hasn't, and I'm seeing now that it's applicable to more serious issues than I would have expected. I mean, we've obviously come a long way from the views of early colonists, but it's incidents like this that remind me just how much further there is to go.
Though I'm grateful to finally have a topic for my blog post, I would trade that and about a million other things to have not have experienced the incident that led to this inspiration. Events essentially played out as follows:
Of all things I could have been doing with my weekend, I had chosen to sign on to Facebook early Friday night. Upon entering the site, one of the first "recent activities" in my "news feed" was that of a boy in my grade using his "status" to explain quite harshly his dislike of the decision of one of his favorite musical artists to sing a song with another obviously less enjoyable (at least to this individual) artist. The status had received some feedback from the Facebook community, all of which came from this individual's friends and all of which were sentiments of agreement, and for whatever reason I decided read these comments.
Instant regret. The first word I saw was "gay" followed shortly by context that I already knew I'd hate. These boys (all of them, boys), these ignorant, insensitive, intolerant boys, spewed that formerly innocent word like their lives depended on it, leaving a sickening trail of negative connotations behind it as their words blazed down my computer screen. And they did it in ways I wasn't exactly expecting. While some were obviously using the word to express that the artist's choice to do this duet was stupid, others were actually implying that doing the song together qualified this artist as a homosexual and that that was a bad thing.
Reading this made me sick and it made me angry. So angry. So I did something. The only thing I could think to do: write my own comment asking them not to use the word like that. I ignored the idea that it wasn't my place or my business. In anger, it just was.
And do you know how they responded? They fed off of that comment like maggots on a carcass. They were fueled by it--inspired maybe. And their comments got nastier, sometimes aimed directly at me. I was disgusted. I had honestly expected more, if only a very little bit more, from them, people of this time period--of this generation, who I was quickly realizing I had little more than age in common with.
But it did really get me thinking.
And you're probably wondering how I managed to relate it to anything we read last week, and, to be honest, you might still have questions by the time I'm done. . .but I'm willing to take that risk.
I actually ended up thinking about the piece of writing we read by Valerie Babb, "Crafting Whiteness in Early America", from her book Whiteness Visible after I was so generously provided the extreme displeasure of this experience. In the chapter and the entire book, Babb explains the history behind the values and customs that created whiteness in the United States. According to Babb "whiteness" was partially defined by identifying other races, usually negatively, to show, rather, what "white" wasn't instead of what it really was.
This basic process of forming a concept of any sort of group by defining another first is still incredibly prevalent in America. In fact, as my situation proved (at least to me), this means of label-making is much more frequently applied and is applied to so many different things other than race these days.
The boys who said these terrible things were prime examples of not only disrespecting a group of individuals that are (apparently) so unlike them but also of incorrectly using one group of people to describe another. Though the insolence to homosexuals is what bothered me most about the situation, it was something a little different that proved Babb's point in this new time. These boys had taken their closed-minded, ill-formed knowledge of a collection of people to help them define "rightness" of the conduct of musical artists like that mentioned in the status, "wrongness" being defined as homosexuality.
And so, I have to ask. . .how different are we? What are we all about now? Times have changed as have people, opinions, and norms. But, Babb's concept of this form of definition hasn't, and I'm seeing now that it's applicable to more serious issues than I would have expected. I mean, we've obviously come a long way from the views of early colonists, but it's incidents like this that remind me just how much further there is to go.
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