Blog 10

The three discourses we have been talking about in class are family, media, and pop-culture and how we can relate them to our Mystory projects. After thinking about each, I realize that they are all of importance when speaking of Brown vs. Board of Education. Family, for instance, played a large part during the time of this case. Black families and white families were pretty much against each other when it came to their children being integrated. The plaintiffs in this case were 12 families who were tired of having themselves and their children segregated and decided to do something about it. After the case, white families did not agree and passed on this racism down to their children by taking their own kids out of integrated schools, when their complaints did not work. Family was an important aspect for African Americans back then because family is all they had for support. The media also played a large part in the way society felt because the media just goes along with the consensus view, and sometimes even established the consensus view. According to my father, their portrayal of this case was not a good one. They made it seem like the world was coming to an end and that integration was ridiculous. Even newspapers were at it, having the audacity to write derogatory remarks in their column. With the help of the media, the pop culture at the time was absolutely no integration. The only people that agreed with integration were the African Americans, while everybody else was flat out against it, especially in more southern places like North and South Carolina where my father grew up. Because of the negativeness of popular culture, many African Americans were harassed, beaten, and even forced to leave, although many left on their own to more northern states who were adopting integration.

Response 6

Oh great, we lost him again. I don’t know what it is with this guy.  Here we are trying to survive, behind enemy lines and Pilgrim just cannot keep up. He isn’t even worthy of being a soldier. I mean look at him! Oddly shaped, un-athletic, and a coward. No wonder he wants us to leave him and let him die. I tell you what, if he gets us caught or gets me killed, I hope someone avenges me and gives that Pilgrim what hes got coming. He is lucky he has the three musketeers here to watch his back. If we get out of this alive, I am going to see to it that he doesn’t get a chance out in the field of battle ever again and repays us for saving his stupid ass. The scouts and I make a great team and once we get back to base, we will surely mentioned as heroes!

Uuuggghh, Billy Pilgrim, Billy Pilgrim, he is the one who killed me. That scum Billy Pilgrim! The Three Musketeers were suppose to be heroes. We were brave out in the field, constantly trying to save Billy Pilgrim, while taking out German scum form behind enemy lines. I tell you what boys, we gave those Germans hell. Billy Pilgrim, uggh Billy Pilgrim is the death of me. Paul, come closer, I need you to avenge me Paul. He does not deserve to live, and I should have left him out in the woods, but the musketeers are brave and noble so could not leave a man behind. Tell my family I love them and I miss them. I am sorry I could not come home to be the hero that i deserve to be. Tell them I died in battle, not in this god forsaken hell hole, with excrement surrounding my dying body. Please tell them that…and for gods sake, avenge my death and kill Billy Pilgrim.

That no good Kurt! how dare he! how dare he, after all these years, call my husband and come to my house to brainstorm about their old war days! And for what, to write a stupid war book, that will no doubt gamourize war. Not only that, there will surely be another war movie based on this book that will glamourize war even more. Hell they’ll probably get some big movie star like Frank Sinatra and John Wayne to play the heroes! This is absurd! They were only babies for gods sake! Just babies! Sweet innocent children like ours! They think going to war is the cool thing to do because of movies like these and for Kurt Vonn..whatever to come into our house and try to relive those horrible memories is absolutely unforgivable!!

Gosh! Sometimes I just get so sick and tired of taking care of my father! I mean he has been though a lot, especially in the war and in the plane crash, but come on! Tralfamadorians!? What the fuck are those! How can someone who has a successful business helping people see things better, be so blind when it comes to reality and fantasy. I know he needs me now, but it is just so hard sometimes seeing him embarrass himself like this with these letters. It is just as embarrassing for me as it is for him! Why can’t he understand that! Oh well, I guess I’ll keep trying to convince him, but at the end of the day, he has pretty much lost his mind…

Blog 9

While reading Slaughterhouse-five, Vonnegut describes many different death scenes, some real, and some that must be made up. He uses the phrase, “so it goes” after every single death he describes. In doing this, he is essentially making every death he describes very nonchalant. He will describe a death in very good detail, but then will end it with this phrase. The entire book is written in a nonchalant  tone, therefore the mood the book gives off is very unemotional. Even though it is written like this, the detail that he uses in describing different events and death shows that even though on the surface, it is very unemotional, underneath, there is a lot of emotion in recalling these past events.

Mystory

1.)For my topic, I will take up a historical event to talk about

2.) I want to take up the controversial yet groundbreaking event of Brown vs. Board of Education. After talking to my father about what it was like to grow up during the cold war, and discussing particular events, he brought up the Brown vs Board of Education case. This has familial relevance to me because both, my mother and father grew up during this time, and although Brown vs Board of Edu. took place in 1954, my father grew up in Raliegh, North Caroline where even after the court case, there was still segregation. My father had to go to an all black school until he graduated high school and college was the first time he even interacted with white people on that kind of level. This also has a personal relevance to me because growing up in a predominantly white area, I have heard and even been subjected to racial stereotypes. Also, I want to go to law school and become a lawyer so the fact that this is a famous court case really interests me. I plan on speaking for a plaintiff going through this case, or a student who would be going through the segregation/integration process, probably the latter. 

3.)The consensus for this time period was that African Americans should be segregated from whites in certain areas and situations. These include restaurants, hotels, bathroom, and especially at this time, schools. 

4.) African Americans should not be segregated from whites because it is morally wrong, and in this time period offered African Americans less equal treatment and inferior/lower class accomodations than white people. This type of segregation and discrimination would also go against the Fourteenth Amendment which was one of the post-civil war amendments to give slaves rights. 

5.) Maybe the fact that even though the Supreme Court rules in favor of Brown, it took a lot more time for most schools to fully integrate African Americans. My father is an example of this because this ruling was passed in the mid 50’s but he did not go to an integrated school until the late 60’s, early 70’s.

6.) racism, ethnicity, heritage, culture are a few CATTt-egories that can be used in “Mystory”.

7.) A few potential figures could be Dr. Martin Luther King of course since we was very active in the civil rights movement, if not the most active figure. Also, another figure I could use would be my father since he was around during this time and experiencing the change first hand, or I could use a parent who was a plaintiff in the court case or even just a parent who’s son/daughter was affected by segregation during this time.

8.) I am not sure, but maybe how someone reading Tripmaster Monkey could view the writer as racist if they did not know he was of the same nationality as the people he was using derogatory remarks about, that could potentially be a problem if I use a term such as nigger. Like I said, I am not sure so I’d like some of your advice on this.

Blog 8

Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros and Maxine Kingston’s Tripmaster Monkey both incorporate important lessons and techniques that are important to our overall experiment. In today’s society, there are a lot of stereotypes that I have grown up hearing, whether on T.V., or in magazines, or during everyday interaction. As much as I have heard derogatory terms being spoken, they have never been spoken freely. When I say freely, I mean that saying such things in society today is considered a bad thing, and looked down upon because it is thought of as taboo, and going against the doxa of today. I am African American myself, but of a much lighter skin than most and I have had people say nigger in front of me; not to me personally, but in front of me and they instantly get uncomfortable and apologize, or if they don’t, I will definitely let them know of their ignorance. To call an African American a nigger today would be completely inappropriate, but less than fifty years ago it was common, and back when there were slaves, that term was a regular. In other words, it was not filtered. Both of these exerpts/short stories use the technique of going against the doxa by “un-filtering” their writing. Each talks about things that are totally inappropriate, like beating on your pregnant wife, and even killing your wife which are mentioned in Woman Hollering Creek, or referring to people stereotypically as F.O.B.’s or gwai, which were referenced in Tripmaster Monkey. Both of these writings are completely un-filtered and it is possible that someone could take these references the wrong way, especially if they did not know the ethnicity or gender of the authors. This technique helped to get me interested in the story because I am not use to reading things that go against the consensus like there pieces of writing do.

Blog 7

Philip Roth uses a number of techniques in his writings, especially in The Plot Against America. MY group and I discussed how he would write this book sort of like a history book with factual information regarding dates and people and situations, and then soon after, he would bring it down a notch and talk about these situation in a more personal realm, usually by telling how a character is personally experiencing the situation. Also, we talked about in class how in The Invisible Man, Ellison uses musical lyrics that are layered and in different voices to give a stereographic affect to his writing. You don’t hear the entire thing, but you hear each line separately. This gives a sense of stereographic plurality.

Response 5

Philip Roth’s, The Plot Against America definitely functions as an antidote to common myth, and consensus in a number of ways. First of all, besides specific examples, the entire novel pretty much functions to go against the doxa of American society today. Because there is some truth to this novel and because he wrote it in a way which shows that these events could have happened, most of the event go against the consensus that we have today. Roth makes America seem like the worst place in the world for Jews, and makes the president an anti semitic scum bag. This goes completely against the doxa because America is considered by many, the land of opportunity and a place where people can be free and do what they want without being scrutinized because of their religious beliefs…at least for the most part. There is nothing about being free for the jews. The fact that these things could have really taken place, and that it is not too farfetched helps the novel function as an antidote because people aren’t taking it as just fiction and something that can never happen. It shows how easily a myth can be made about the jews and shows what would happen is more people  joined the consensus and thought like Lindberg. This situation is more of a real life example of going against the doxa. Another way in which this novel serves as an antidote to consensus is the fact that in the novel, the media portrays Linderg as sort of a savior and will help keep America out of war. Everyone believed this except the Roth family once Lindberg started running for presidency. The media is such a large part of today society because they have so much influence over what we say, do, and wear and even how we act. The media pretty much drives consensus, but the Roth family along with other Jews go against the doxa and know that what Lindberg is doing is completely wrong and immoral. The entire novel goes against todays idea of America, but at the same time, the historicity can be related to America today in a number a ways. This shows that when people follow the consensus, good may not come of it. 

Roth’s novel was hard to get through at first, but as I kept reading, it became more and more interesting, especially because it reminded me of Ragtime. He writes this novel of fiction, but adds events that have actually happened, or events that easily could have happened, to bring the reader in and get their attention. This helps to keep the reader interested and want to read on especially because some of the outcomes in this story could have happened in real life. This technique of combining the historicity with literal accounts helps make this novel as interesting as it is. Another technique that was sort of annoying for me at first was how he would write about an event of some sort that was taking place globally, but then he would bring everything down to a smaller scale and talk about a personal experience. He would keep switching back and forth and it was sort of hard to follow, but in the end, it was a pretty good technique because it slowed everything down and gave two views of the situation, a global one and a personal one.

Blog 6

Over spring break when my lacrosse team and I were in Colorado, we went and saw “The Watchmen” which I found very interesting. It reminded me a lot of what we have been doing and reading in class. In the film, Nixon is still president and the world is sort of under chaos. The government uses one character as a sort of super weapon to win wars, and I associate this weapon with something like a nuke. Also, one of the main characters feels it is necessary to kill millions of people in order to save billions and billions of lives. This sort of reminds me of the governments in todays society because I feel like America is willing to sacrifice lives in order to make things better for more people. There is a lot more to this movie than I have said and I have to see it again in order get the full gist of what is going on in the entire movie.

Blog 5

After finishing this book, the cold war makes a lot more sense to me. I was never really taught in depth about the cold war and what it actually involved. This short intro by McMahon does a great job in pointing out the things that the general consensus does not know. How Stalin did what he did because he thought it was the best thing for his country, how the U.S. supplied weapons to the middle east to fight communism, how the U.S. did not want China to become an ally of the Soviet and further increase the communist movement; theses are all things that consensus America does not know enough about. After reading this, I realize that McMahon has a lot of information about the cold war, but I start to wonder how accurate it all is. I mean I am sure it is accurate, but to what extent. No matter who you talk to about it, everyone has a different idea, or different facts they present about the war, but you can never really get the true effect of what really happened. All of this talk about the doxa and implementing what we have learned about it in this book has enlightened me so much. It has helped me be able to think more outside the box when it comes to myths that society has established and I can use this knowledge to help me in my future.

Response 4, Part II(Tyler Welt)

I chose Tyler’s response because it was similar to mine in a few ways. These storms he mentions are the vehicles used to  describe the United States, and the Soviets. When he refers to the “red hue”, he is referring the the Soviet “storm”. The bridge functions as an area of constraint and idleness. The people on the bridge do not know which side to choose. Both storms look uninviting, and the only place that seems to still be home is right in the middle, not taking any sides. People on the bridge were in fear of what tiny action might bring their lives into war. The flashes that the boy is thankful for not seeing, are the flashes of the missiles that would begin the war. Tyler uses good vehicles in this response to demonstrate the terror that people must have felt back in that time.

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