Final Reflection

I have really enjoyed this class.  It has taught me a lot about how to look at things in a different light and to be more open-minded when it comes to other people's opinions.  One of my favorite quotes during this course was "love is an inborn suffering and a universal headache" (p. 299).  This was one of my favorites because I really connected with it in the way that everyone needs to be loved and everyone in the world is capable of love.  I can attest to this because not everyone is easy to love, like my little brother, but I do because he is my family and is always there for me.  There are also so many different kinds of love, so no matter what kind of love it is, everyone needs it in some form or another.  I have learned so much from this class and I am glad I took the opportunity to learn and grow both intellectually and culturally throughout this course.

Week 18 Reflection

there were many privileges on the list that were remarkable but the one that stood out the most to me was number 46.  It said "I have the privilege of being unaware of my male privilege."  This is so true because more than half of all men really are unaware of their male privilege and believe there is no such thing.  My friend and I were talking about this the other day and he said that more than half the things on the checklist was just dumb and didn't exist.  Men really are unaware of their male privilege.
Men in the media today really are either very emotional or very tough.  It's one extreme or the other.  You never really see just any plain, average Joe guy on television anymore.  Back when TV first came out, I think they had people on television that connected really well with their audiences because of the fact that they were average.  It has changed a lot since then and men cannot connect as well with the characters portrayed on TV today rather than back in the day.
When I get married, I want my husband to be able to make me laugh and just goof around with me.  Yes, good looks are important, but not as important as the connection you feel with them and how well you get along with them.  I'm not a very superficial person so as long as me and my husband are happy, everything will work out in the end.  I also would like my husband to be patient with me, as I am human and I make mistakes.  He needs to be good with kids as well.  I'm excited to be able to get married to someone like this someday and be happy for the rest of my life.

Week 18: Gender

Male Privilege Checklist:
Page 536.  This passage was very interesting to me.  I really enjoyed it because it had so many unique facts and truths that most people never really think about day to day.  My favorite quote in this passage was number 46, "I have the privilege of being unaware of my male privilege" (p. 538).  I really thought this was interesting because as we were discussing this passage in class, one of my friends that is a boy disagreed with more than half of the things on the checklist.  Men really are unaware of their male privilege and they need to be more grateful.

Media Portrayals:
Page 538.  The following stereotypes (p. 539) are very common in the media.  The Joker: Joey from Friends.  The Jock: Puck from Glee.  The Strong Silent Type: Jay from Modern Family.  The Big Shot: Iron Man.  The Action Hero: Malfoy from Harry Potter.  The Buffoon: Phil from Modern Family.  This passage said "The study also revealed that the boys were quite aware that these male characters on television differed from their own friends, fathers, and from themselves" (p. 540).  I thought it was interesting that the men were aware of the fact that these stereotypes are really quite uncommon in the real world, but it is the way in which the media chooses to portray them.

Look for My Prince Charming:
Page 543.  This passage was very interesting to me since it has to do with both gender and race.  Shalmali Pal is talking about how she is trying to find someone that she wants to marry, but she also wants him to be Indian like her.  The reason for this interracial marriage for her, and for most other people I would assume, is because it means less confusion for both parties.  "When people ask why I've agreed to my family's setups, I could say it's about preserving my cultural heritage...but in the end, I'm just lazy.  Marrying an Indian means a lot less explaining" (p. 543).  This was what she meant by less confusion, is that she wouldn't have to explain all of her cultural and heritage background to the person she marries if he is Indian.  I think that that is why interracial marriages are so common in our society and that they will continue to be for quite some time.

Shocking Story

Page 602.  The general argument made by William Bradford Huie in his work The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi is that blacks really were treated very unfair during the time of integration among races in public society.  More specifically, Huie argues that white people were not even worried about the consequences of hurting another human being because the law enforcement still didn’t care about different races.  He writes, “[Milam] was worried for the first time.  Somebody might see [them] and accuse [them] of stealing the fan” (p. 606).  In this passage, Huie is suggesting that the kidnappers weren’t even worried about the consequences of violating another human being’s rights, they were only worried about what people would think if they thought they had stolen a fan.  In conclusion, it is Huie’s belief that white people during this time were not held accountable for their actions and the heinous killing that was committed was completely accepted by the community in which they lived.

            In my view, Huie is right because there was never any public question about if those men had even had a reason for doing it or not and it was totally accepted by everyone in the white community.  For example, if those men would have done what they did to Emmitt to a white boy, they would have been sent to jail, but since it was too an out-of-town black boy, no one even had a second thought about it.  Although Huie might object that those men had a reason, I maintain that those men that killed him had justified their reason in their minds enough so that they would feel good enough about killing a young black boy.  Therefore, I conclude that even after integration, blacks were still not being treated fairly and that those men should have been sent to jail for what they had done.

Hughes

Page 593.  This poem was somewhat confusing to me.  I had a hard time understanding what he meant some of the time until I realized that he was half white and half black.  In Hughes’s poem, he says, “my old man died in a fine big house, my ma died in a shack.  I wonder where I’m gonna die, being neither white nor black?” (p. 594).  This was really interesting to me because it just shows how he was never really accepted by either community.  He felt very alone probably because he felt so unsure of who he even was.  I really liked his poetry though and it really made me think about race and how different everyone is, but we are all so alike.

Graduation

Page 612.  Maya Angelou is such a phenomenal writer.  She is never afraid to write what she feels and she truly writes from the heart.  One of my favorite lines in this text was "I began to see my classmates' clothes, their skin tones..." (p. 613).  I really liked this because it showed just how much growing up can corrupt and innocent child.  I'm sure when she was younger she never thought about why everyone was different, or that anyone was really all that different at all.  But now that she is growing up, she is starting to realize how unfair the world really is and believes that she should get the same rights as everyone else.

Week 17 Reflection

The importance of the role models in this text was very significant.  The speaker was trying to tell these African-Americans that they could only grow up to be as great as the other black people, not to be some scholar or the president, just sports or doing things in the home.  Maya Angelou viewed the differences she heard in the speaker's choices because he would not have given that same speech to the white people.  She felt degraded and she felt as if her graduation day was ruined.

Week 16 Reflection

The culture in which both these writers were living was one of extreme racism and prejudice.  The discrimination was allowed and condoned in America because racism had been going on for so long in America, people really believed there was something "wrong" with other races.  This was condoned because everyone was so used to it and didn't want to change their way of thinking after so many years.

Week 15 Reflection

Many parts of this story was familiar to me.  It reminded me in many ways of Romeo and Juliet.  They feel like they need to hide their feelings from each other because their families were in such dispute with one another.  Tristan chooses love because he decides that love is more important than honor if it is true love.

Tristan

Page 302.  This passage is a poem that is just talking about two lovers that overcome their shame of their love for one another.  It talks about how they “hid their feelings from each other” (p. 303).  I can really connect with this because there have been so many times in my life where I hide my feelings from boys that I like.  It also said in the passage that “man was there with woman, woman there with man.  What else should they be needing?” (p. 305).  I really liked this because it made me think that love is really all anyone needs in the world.  If you have someone to love, possessions and material things really shouldn’t matter.  In the end, none of those things will stick with you throughout your life really except for the people you love and the people who love you.  Love is all you need, and I truly believe that.

Week 14 Reflection

The Symposium
1. Diotima plays the role of reason and reality in this story.  She is introduced to the audience to show that event though she is not widely known, she was in many ways, a philosopher.
2. Socrates represents the idealized version of the lover as given in Diotima's account because he is always trying to show how everything really can be perfect.  He also has many questions, which represents the fact that idealized version of lovers are often unaware of what is going on and are somewhat confused.  Diotima gives him reality checks to show that love is not always perfect.
Other Passion Readings
1. Some concepts/rules in the reading that are still basic to romantic love are: Love is always growing or diminishing, it is not proper to love one whom one would be ashamed to marry, and a lover is always fearful of losing a loved one.
2. He believes they should be respected, especially if they are of a higher class.
3. "Vaster than empires, and more slow" is how he said his love would grow.  This is the most valuable instruction in a good marriage because fully loving and appreciating someone for who they really are takes time, but in the end, their love for each other will be huge.
4. They did not acquiesce.  It talked about how she would die a virgin.
5. Some symptoms of love are that it is "a universal migraine" and it "blots out reason."  This means that everyone has experienced love at some point or another and it blots out reason means that love makes people to crazy, irrational things.