White is Beautiful. Black is Beautiful. White Power. Black Power.

Power defined as beautiful. I'm going to say no. Power and beauty correlate for a second but it's fleeting. Power is the reason there is a difference between black and white. Someone in power said we're different. We is not them. Power is hideous. But powerlessness is horrible too. It's a paradox. Power means you have control. That you have authority but over what? When power is said no one means power over the self. That's freedom. Power by itself means control over others. If someone is powerful that automatically translates to someone is being forced to be weaker. Is that beauty? White and black shouldn't be used that way. White and black have been used in multiple kinds of context. Color, race, but my favorite is light. White light is created by the mixture of all the color spectrums, think Pink Floyd. Black is the absence of light. In those terms it's simple and logical, but when applied to people it's fatal. If there is black, white cannot exist. If there is white, it's imposed on the black. So what do we do? It's time that we focus less on the extremes and concentrate on the in between. The color.
-Yandely Almonte

11/30/15 Journal Entry on Mark Zuckerberg talking in Chinese - Jasneel Chaddha

By: Jasneel Chaddha
Journal Entry from 11/30/15

China. The world's most prosperous economy right now. Its no surprise that Mark Zuckerberg, a businessman, wants to expand his brand and product in a nation like China. Any smart businessman would do the same thing. The only problem is the severe language barrier. Unlike most countries, China does not require its students to study English. Rather, it is offered as an optional course at schools and universities across the country. Zuckerberg knew that in order to be taken seriously among the other business giants in China, he would need to impress them with more than just his product. He needed to impress them with his knowledge, however limited, of the Chinese language. I think its ironic that Zuckerberg has tried so hard to expand to China when his product, Facebook, is blocked across the entire country. Trust me, I know; I went to China for 3 weeks a few summers ago and was Facebook deprived for the entire duration of the trip. Perhaps he sees a future where it won't be blocked. If that happens, however, it will complicate matters for Facebook; China already has numerous social media sites that have millions of users. It will be tough to convince Chinese cities to switch over to Facebook. But I also respect Mark a lot for taking the initiative to learn Chinese, despite his insanely busy schedule. I know how hard it is to learn Chinese; I took it as my foreign language all through high school, and plan to continue studying it here at NYU. It takes a lot of time to master, and he's already pretty good. It is also validation for me that I understood what he said without the subtitles. I guess I did learn something after four and a half years of taking the language. Remains to be seen if Facebook will ever be unblocked in China, but Zuckerberg sure does have quite a few talents. I guess being married to a Chinese woman left him no choice, right?!