This song is 2 pac reflecting on his childhood and how thankful he is for his mother. She took care of him and helped him even as he caused trouble and made it hard for her. It's a beautiful song that represents the good sides of rap. I really don't like 2pac. I don't know why. The more I learn about him the more I grow to respect him. He united and preached peace to violent black communities and fought for black rights. His tragic assassination led to him being deified with an unbelievably great legacy. I think the reason why I naturally dislike 2pac is because his music is always used by white kids to try to be “ghetto”. It pisses me off when I see friends or just people who change the way they talk, how they dress, how they act and even the music they listen to in order to make themselves feel different at times. They act like they've gone through the struggles that these people do and then use the same language speaking about their “struggles” in their upper class lifestyles. I guess I don't dislike 2pac, I dislike my association of his music with spoiled kids. It’s weird that unappreciative kids bother me because i'm one myself. It's ironic that through this exercise, themes of the song are coming as epiphany's to me. Good job 2pac now you're living up to the hype.
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Carmela's January 31 Journal
While
listening to the song all I could think about was if someone in this room
either had a bad relationship with their mom or if their mom didn’t raise them.
I then started to think about my friend Natalie who just lost her mom in
September. How that wound is still fresh. If she had been in here she may have
gotten emotional because she and her mom were so close and now her mom is gone.
I know a lot of people who have bad relationships with their mom, don’t know
their mom, or have lost their mom. Knowing so many people in situations like
this make me even more grateful of what my mom does for me. She raised my
brother and me and did the best she could. My dad was not around much because
of the restaurants he owns, leaving the child rearing to my mom. My mom would
make the hour long drive to my middle and high school every day until I was
able to drive myself junior year. She came to every single cross country race
when I was in middle school and cheered so loudly that all the other teams knew
that Sycamore School had a runner named Carmela. She came to the regattas when
they were at home in Indiana. She attended every single band concert, soccer
game, and tennis match. She was always there. She always had food on the table
for me. She always helped me with homework. She always pushed me to do my best.
Raising her kids was already a full time job, just like other moms, but she
decided that she was done sitting at home waiting to get me from school. When I
was in 8th grade she went back to school and got her masters in
history. She graduated on May 2nd which also happened to be her 50th
birthday. My mom is my rock star. She’s a marathoner (she’s running her 10th
Boston Marathon this April and I think that’s also her 22nd
marathon) and she’s now training for an Iron Man. My mom is my hero and I do
appreciate her. My brother and I do everything we can to show that but we know
that nothing will ever be able to properly prove it to her.
Journal
For me, I personally don't agree with Fran Lebowitz’s opinion. First, the person that I like or fall in love at the first glance perhaps is not the person that I would like in the future. However, the person that I like after many times or days knowing each other is the person that I really like. As the time we spend with each other goes up, we will get closer and closer to each other. I think no matter what kind of personality when a man is when he is in a romantic relationship, it’s part of his true self. A normal human is a human who has a lot of different personalities. Even a person lost his reason when he falls in love with other people, it’s still part his true self.
Monday, January 29, 2018
Journal 1/29/2018
Romantic love is mental illness. But it’s a pleasurable one. It’s a drug. It distorts reality, and that’s the point of it. It would be impossible to fall in love with someone that you really saw.
-Fram Lebowitz
This claim about love is somewhat irritating to me , however I do see truth in some of it. Love is like a drug, it can bring you extreme joy, and it can also bring you extreme pain. Love is a growing process and I believe that love’s point isn’t what Lebowitz, but its one of the many forms you can use to discover yourself and your place in the others around you, and society as a whole. You discover what you like and what you cant stand. Its a pathway to learn and grow.
I think that her use of definite statement like love is mental illness can be true for some. It can be over powering and challenging. However love is many things to many different people. I don’t care for her negative tone towards love, as that is not the feeling I get when I hear the word love. The part of her statement I strongly disagree with is that it would be impossible to fall in love with someone you really saw. Love is falling in love with the whole part of another, the good and the bad, and accepting all of it. People are afraid of love because they are afraid to be themselves, but the love where you ate yourself is greater than any love.
Journal -12.13.17
The
image shows the confederate flag on the south side of the US. This reminds me
of something that I saw on the news recently. I'm sure most people have seen by
now the video of Keaton, the kid who was bullied at school because of his
looks, and he made a video about it, touching many people's hearts. A lot of
celebrities have been standing up for him and inviting him to movie premieres
and making donations towards him. His video became viral and there is even a
hashtag that states "StandUpForKeaton". Well now, many people have
looked into the mother's social media, where there is a photo of her holding up
the confederate flag, and another image of her daughter also holding up the
flag. Many people have been offended because of the racial implications that
the flag has. The mother came out to say that those are the only times they
have ever been near the flag, and that they only did it as a joke, and that it
wasn't supposed to be taken seriously. She even said that all throughout her
life she has been bullied by others for NOT being racist. The flag is used by
many white supremacist and hatred groups such as the KKK and Trump supporters.
To say that she only held it up as a "joke" makes people view her as
someone who is very inconsiderate. It is also ironic, because she has dealt
with all the discrimination that her son has had to go through, and so she
should be the last one to be holding up a symbol of discrimination.
- Susan
- Susan
Journal - 11/27/18
The video we just
watched showed what black people have had to go through. There were images of
them being brought in ships all chained up. There were images of them being
sold to white people (and even a child was being sold). It showed how colored
people had to sit in the back of the bus. This reminds me of a video I put up
on my Snapchat yesterday. It was a "commercial" (not a real one
though) done by College Humor. They were advertising "diet racism".
Diet racism is for those who are "kind of racist". It's for people
who are the ones to say "I'm not racist but… and then go on to say
something really racist. It's "diet" because they don't contribute
directly to racism, but they are still racist. It then goes on to show
different types of people saying racist things and then drinking the beverage.
For example, the last lady that is shown is a middle age white woman sitting in
her bed saying that her children would have a better time getting into college
if they were a minority. Proceeding, the narrator says that she fails to
understand that black people once had to be escorted by the army to schools.
There was also another white man who was sitting in his office saying that
black people don't have it that bad, and then says "you know the Irish
were mistreated too". Or the white woman at a party, who whispers to her
friend "you know I'm not racist or anything, but I would never date an
Asian guy." And she says this as she is standing next to an Asian man.
There is also a white couple walking down the street, and two Latinos are
walking their way, and although they don't say out loud that they have fear
towards them, they move to the side and decide to walk across the street to not
be near them. This commercial for the "diet racism" goes on for about
two minutes showing different types of racist people, and the narrator counter
argues why they are wrong. At the end, they say "diet racism, because you
just don’t get it".
- Susan
- Susan
Journal - 10.30.17
This film is used as
an expert in the film "I am Not Your Negro". In it and in the essays
that James Baldwin has written, he explains the problem with white people. He
describes how black people aren't the problem although that's what white people
make it seem like. It is white people who are the problem and their way of
thinking is incorrect. In one of the letters he wrote, he explains that white
people like to conform to society. He says that many may know that their racist
thoughts and actions were wrong but they continue to do it to not feel like
outcasts from their own group of people. He believes that if a white person
acted differently from what the way the were "supposed" to be acting
at the time, then they would feel a sense of uncertainty. In this short clip,
he talks about the word "nigger". In it, he explains how he doesn't
identify as one, but giving that word to black people shows the type of people
that white people are. In the film, "I Am Not Your Negro" he explains
how this could be a way of showing fear. And though it may seem as fear towards
black people, it may be fear of themselves. In the film he also talks about how
he sees no difference between black and white people. He gives the example of
Crawford (I forget her first name), who was a dancer on tv at the time. Because
she was white, he felt odd expressing that he thought she was beautiful. But
what seemed to be even more odd for him at the time, was that later that day
after seeing her on tv, he went to the grocery store and saw a women in the
store that seemed just like Crawford, just as beautiful. What was odd to him,
was that she was black. That's when he came to the realization that beauty is
not defined by race. It was odd to him because he was going against societal
expectations of how to view others. Another issue that he brings about in his
work, is not only are white people wrong for having the mindset that they have,
but black people are wrong for conforming to what was happening and even
believing that they were inferior.
- Susan
- Susan
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)