C.I.N.D.Y.

       First semester I learned and read many things. The book that i sought most interesting was Macbeth. I like the way we read it and acted it out. My second favorite book was A lesson before Dying because, this book taught me a great deal about how life was back then. Next semester I hope to read The Odessey because, I have heard so much about it and have not yet read it. I also hope that we read another shakespeare book or a book with a moral I can relate and carrry thoroughtout life. I am looking foward to the discussions and questions that are yet to be discovered in English Class.

         Well, I am not sure what the actual question this blog should be exactly answering but, I do know that it has to be over the topic of racism. Unfortunately, racism still exists to this day and I assume that this is why we have to write about it. I think of Racism as an invisible line the segregates people into groups because, it impacts the way people gather. For example, not too long ago at Greenwich High School there was a fight between one race and another. This fight began because, one guy offended the other guy by race. One of the most hurtful things that you can say to someone to built tensions is a comment on their race, religion, or skin color. I am not going to go into exact detail over what actually happened in the fight because, everyone has their own opinions according to what race they represent. 

     Another example that really bothers me but, I can not do much about is the segregation in the Student Center! This segregation is not written to exist but, it exists mentally. What I mean by this is that people sit with people who they feel comfortable with, relate to, and do not feel opressed by. The insecuirty between diverse people is the streotypes and the feeling of not wanting to deal with them. I do not blame people for sitting with people who they are most comfotable with because, it’s their free choice. However, I find it extrodinary how it always comes down to most people sitting with other people of their race.

      Something I personally experianced being hispanic is people degrading us. I never taught it was true because, I did not live up to the streo types that there are about hispanics. One day, when my mother needed to figure out where an outstanding withdrawl from her bank account had came from. She called her bank and asked to have the number of the company who charged it so she could call. i will not say what company it was but when she called they assisted her and it was the normal “press one for english” “press 2 for spanish”. She ended up pressing 2 and I assume spoke to a spanish telephone operator person. However, this person gave my mom a hard time because, she refused to negociate with her in spanish. According to my mom after five minutes of accomplishing nothing with the lady, the operator person hung up on her! Now, I am stuck with dealing with the bill problems by phone because, my mother hates it when people do not give her respect. I have noticed that my mother is not the only one who experianced such a disappointment that there are many other people who do not get the same attention as some body who speaks English. I hate saying the language English in general because, there are also many accents in the English language as well!

Satire is popular because, it is what the people enjoy to hear and laugh about. Many people like jokes such as ones that concern of other races. However, when the joke is about their race they do not find it funny just offensive. I think it is a smart idea to use humor to criticize social problems because, it is a way of getting the message out to people with out making them angry. The movie Borat is considered Satire because, it was hillarious and made fun of everything as well as taught people in America how Borat’s home town’s culture was. In my opinion, Scary Movie was not funny at all and was not a satire because, it made fun of other movies not so much of realistic social problems. I can both enjoy Satire and also find it very annoying. For example, the show Mind of Mencia drives me crazy. I believe it makes too much fun of hispanic people that it crosses the line! However, people who are not hispanic find the show to be hillarious and very entertaining. Do not get me wrong or anything because, I do laugh at hispanic jokes as long as they do not cross the line. My favorite hispanic comedian is George Lopez because, his jokes are very true about all hispanics and are very funny. The way he can make all people laugh is incredible. He is a great example of Satire because, he gets his message about the hispanic culture across without offending anyone. I form this assumption because, I never really hear of any complaints when he performs on Comedy Central. However, when I attend parties with my parents the hot topic is always about the show Mind of Mencia and how that guy should be fired and etc.

After reading a few passages: In the passage about Isaac Mason  there was a passage that stated,

“I wonder how I withstood all the abuse and cruelty of these early years. Our lives are largely composed of sorrow and joy, but my cup, it seems to me, has been full to overflowing with sorrow, but God has been my strength and my salvation, and has brought me thus far in the journey of life, and in him I trust, praying that in his good time he will take me to that heavenly home where our earthly trials will cease and where there will be no more sorrow”

I found this passage to be very interesting for many reasons. First, I was unaware that slaves had the knowledge to read and write. I always thought that slaves were imported to the United States to just strictly work. Although, I did know that some slaves wrote poems in which their masters did not favor. I never knew that slaves actually had the intellegence to write stories or autobiographies in this case for Isaac Mason. In the passage I used for this blog it shows how religous slaves were during the period of slavery. I find this extrodinary because, I would assume that slaves lost faith more then gained it because, wouldn’t they think, if god really loved us then why is he allowing us to be treated like slaves and sometimes whipped to death? It is amazing how much slaves look toward religion to help them get through the slavery period and just look foward to dying and being freed from such misery.

         I believe this strong faith can teach alot of people a lesson such as, the one that the character Huck Finn is going to learn in the book we are going to read in English class soon. I personally did not know that slaves were capable of so much so, i perdict that Mark Twain makes facts about slaves such as the passage I posted more visable to his readers. I think that Mark twain is going to try to teach Huck as well as his readers to appreciate everyone and find racism ridiculous for existing.

Before Reading: I know the slavery was a time in which segregation existed and controled the way people lived and treated one another due to color. The white people were more superior than the black people because, the while people (especially) in the south saw the black people as slaves. Black Slaves were treated as animals and were only seen as a way to double their crop profit. In a reading on the topic of Fredrick Douglass that we did in class, it stated that black people were given a certain amount of clothes in which was not much. They had to maintain the clothes given to them until they were given more clothes. Furthermore, the article stated that children ran around sometimes with just a shirt or or just naked. I found this very suprised and wrong because, it made me realize the conditions that slaves lived in during the period of slavery. I am looking foward to enrich my knowledge upon slavery by reading the following Slave Narratives. I hope to learn more about slavery through the eyes of people who lived it other than people who just seen or heard of it.

      On the aticle First Account Narratives: Segregated Education, it states

“Ralph Jennings’ father, and the janitor took me in the basement. In the boiler room and they had a strap. This strap was like a razor strap that you use in the barbershop, but it had holes in it. They’d pull your pants down and expose your bare skin and whip you. That strap would suck, when they pulled it away, and cause this terrible pain. So after that whipping, I jumped the fence and ran home to Providence and told my mother. That was the end of my stay at Brumfield.”

I found this story told by Clifford Boxley to be very sad. I can not believe that after all the complements the school back then recieved on this website, that there would be such violence. Although, I do know that whipping existed in education back then and was found to be okay to do. I still do not agree that a teacher should be allowed to beat a child to make them so miserable where they do not want to come back to school. School is supposed to be a place where young people want to go and be educated not fear.

      The shakespeare production I saw outside of class was the Romeo and Juliet movie with Leonardo Decaprio. This movie is based on what it would be like if it were to happen in present life. In other words, the setting of the play was not what i typically expected it to be. I expected for the movie to be filmed in Europe where everything would be set to how it looked back in the day. However, this movie was filmed in California with a present setting. The characters spoke the same words that are written in the orginal play with acception of a few adjustments. The characters in this movie acted very well and delievered the same message that the written Romeo and Juliet play did. Furthermore, this movie created the same feeling I felt when i finished reading the Romeo and Juliet play. This emotion was the pain felt along with the character Romeo feels as his eyes meet his beloved’s body surrounded by candles lying dead but beautiful. The feeling the director created for his audience is exrodinary because, it lets the audience get an idea of how Romeo is feeling by the side of his loved one in which leads to his choice of death. I enjoyed watching the movie production of the orginal Romeo and Juliet shakespeare because, it proved to me that the year a play is written should not be the reason why people ignore the book because it can still have an influence in the present and future.

         The story Night was deffinetly worth reading. I would have to say that this is the most touching story I have ever read. This book has really made me realize how much you might love someone and have to leave them behind. For example, when Elizer’s father did not have the energy to continue on, so Elizer left him behind and looked out for himself. This story has showed me to be careful about leaving loved ones behind because, you never know if that is the last time you will ever see, speak, or laugh with them. I would love to find more about what happened to Elizer after the whole nightmare was over such as, if he grew up and began a family of his own, continued his life without his family, or if he was reunited with his sister and mother!!

            At the concentration camps the Jews were separated by gender and ages. Elizer lied about his age so he could stay with his father since, he was already separated from his mother and sister. Elizer and his father were grouped together and put to work. Elizer and his father stayed together whenever it was possible and kept each other company. However, when the Nazi’s started to punish and whip his father for not doing something right, Elizer grew to get angry at his father for doing it wrong. This horrible change in Elizer’s attitude saddens me because, you should not get mad at your father for doing something wrong and you should feel some kind of sympathy if you are watching him get beaten. Later on in the story Elizer does eventually get separated from his father because his father is not eligible enough to continue working with Elizer. Elizer’s father is put into the group of weak workers that get executed because, they are not needed anymore. Elizer only thirteen years old has to keep his head up and pray that his father survives. Fortunately, his father does survive and they reunite once again at the concentration camp.

           Elizer gets intro some trouble himself which also results to getting beaten. Elizer said that Franek was having sex with someone instead of doing his job. This was not a smart choice for Elizer to make because, Franek was in control of him as well as the other jews and getting him into trouble is just digging a deeper hole for himself. In other words, “you do not mess with the hand that feeds you.” Elizer should have never tried to get the person who controls his area of Jews in trouble because he is going to recieve a worse punishment because he is inferior. Furthermore, Franek had more of a power to defend himself and accuse Elizer for lying. Therefore, Elizer should have never said anything because he lives under someone else’s rule who does not tolerate that.

          Through out the rest of the story Elizer continues to strive for his own survival. He soon begins to be self centered and concentrate on his own survival instead of his father’s. Elizer’s father dies because he could not keep going an y longer. It surprised me that Elizer once again did not feel any sympathy or loss when he heard his father died. Instead, he continued to look out for himself and try to get out of the nightmare as soon as possible. Elizer is the strongest thirteen year old boy I know. He has done through so much throughout his experience during the Holocuast that I can not believe he acted the way he did. I would expect a thirteen year old to break down and cry from the news of their father dying . I find it amazing how this character held his emotions in and used it to make him stronger. I love Elizer’s attitude! Because it is good for someone to be able to be a strong person and not be put down even at times such as the one written about in the story Night.

        I have been reading Night by Elie Wiesel. This book is about his life as a child and victim of the holocaust. The story begins back when he was a young child. As a young child he went against his father’s will by reading and studing the Kabbalah. Eliezer was big into his faith when he was young. He pracited, studied, believed, and lived by his jewish faith. However, when the Hungarians and the Gestapo demanded to evacuate all jews from the area, he began to lose faith. He began to loose faith because, he did not think that his god would allow such evil to occur. The whole scene of jews being imported in trains to concentration camps, to live as slave animals scared him. He did not believe in god or his faith as much as he did before the jews started being taken away. No one believed that such a thing was occuring in front of them to their members of their religion. However, later on the people who did not believe.

         The one character that amazed me in the begining of the story is Madame Schachter because, of her predictions of the conditions of the concentration camps. In the story it is told that she screamed at the imaginary image of fire and the evil being practice at the concentration camps. Unfortunately, she was beaten till she stopped screaming because her screams intimidated all the other jews being deported to the Concentration camps. I think it Madame Scachter’s ability to see into the future is amazing because, all the other jews seemed to be blinded of the truth. In other words, Made Schacter was not blinded by reality. She predicted what the future held for the jews, where as the other jews sat in suspense on the train hoping that everything would soon turn out okay. The conditions of the concentration camps were horrible! People had to dig holes for themselves to be burried in! I am looking foward to continue reading about what happened to the jews at the concentration camps and how the story ends.