Extra Credit Post

Ahh it's black friday. I didn't go shopping today though...I went yesterday at 6 pm.  Every year it seems that black friday starts earlier and earlier and of course me and my family bought into the hype. It was insane at great lakes crossing yesterday, I waited an hour and a half just to buy two t-shirts. As I was standing in line trying not to go crazy, it occurred to me that there are many parallels between the consumerism of the roaring twenties and the consumerism around the holidays in our society today.

After waiting very long in line for two shirts I realized that I had wasted my night. What happiness would buying this give me? It's literally 10 dollars off of a shirt. The great gatsby does an excellent job of showing how pointless materialism really is.


Fitzgerald was disillusioned with how america had turned into a materialistic driven country so he wrote gatsby. If fitzgerald was alive now I'm absolutely positive he would be even more disgusted than he was back then. The amount of advertising on our buildings, televisions, radios. and games is ridiculous.  This all ties back to my experience yesterday.We all know how destructive chasing money and materials is, and how money doesn't equal happiness, but we continue to buy into black friday. Why do we all go crazy on black friday? Why does buying clothes and appliances on minimal sales make us so happy? Fitzgerald and all of us had this same question. I'm afraid that we are all aware of our stupidity but we will never break the shackles of consumerism. With that being said, I'll see all of you next year for the sales! :)

Lost Generation

I'm quite happy actually. I'm happy because I got to do some more research on one of my favorite eras from american history: the 1920's. I aced this unit in APUSH so I was excited to do research on it.

Anyways, modernism in the 1920's is really interesting to me. It was a time of industrialization, a time of change, a time of new ideas and values. Long gone were the days of rural lifestyle, the place to be was the city. Screw community and family living, independence was the goal.Forget the farms, the stock market was where the real money was at. Modernism was embraced by many but modernism was also rejected and frowned upon by many.

One such group that were disillusioned with all the changes were the writers of the lost generation. Ernest hemingway made the bold statement "You are all a lost generation." Many other writers of the time believed in this such as F Scott Fitzgerald. The disillusionment of all these writers were because of "the lack of purpose or drive resulting from the horrific disillusionment felt by those who grew up and lived through the war, and were then in their twenties and thirties. Having seen pointless death on such a huge scale, many lost faith in traditional values like courage, patriotism, and masculinity." (O'Connor, university of oxford)

The lost generation is important. Some of the most influential and praised books were a product of the writers of the lost generation. The Great Gatsby and a Farewell to Arms are both essential pieces of american literature. I'm excited to read the Great Gatsby.

Loving you is complicated

Butterflies are beautiful, and there are no attempts from anyone to make them more beautiful. People are also beautiful like butterflies , yet white America continues to attempt to "Pimp" these butterflies. Why? The parallels between Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye and Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly are uncanny. Both projects tackle the themes of white america bearing black america down, racism, self hatred/love, beauty, and socioeconomic standing. There are many songs from this album that could be analysed within the context of The Bluest Eye, but I want to focus on "u" which arguably is the most difficult song to listen to sonically, but arguably the most personal and deep song to listen to lyrically. The song is all about depression, more specifically self-depression and self hatred, which is something Pecola deals with in Morrison's book. 

You preached in front of 100,000 but never reached her
I fuckin' tell you, you fuckin' failure—you ain't no leader!
I never liked you, forever despise you—I don't need you!
The world don't need you, don't let them deceive you

Here, Kendrick acknowledges being hailed as a great by hip hop legends, yet not feeling as if he's accomplished anything. He says he never reached "her" which is women in general and more specifically his sister. He realizes he can have critical success but without making a difference in people's lives he feels useless. This is quite similar to how Toni feels in the foreword, she is unsatisfied because readers felt “touched but not moved”. Morrison also says that self loathing is worse than being disliked because it's internalized and it can lead to self destruction. 

Self destruction. Which is exactly what Kendrick is going through in the song. He's drunk, he's crying. He's wailing. We see a man literally hate himself so much that it leads to near destruction. He second guesses his accomplishments and second guesses living. 

You ain’t no brother, you ain’t no disciple, you ain’t no friend
A friend never leave Compton for profit or leave his best friend

This song is a stark contrast to "i" which is an upbeat song about positivity and self love. 

(I love myself)
Illuminated by the hand of God, boy don't seem shy
(I love myself)
One day at a time, uhh

Kendrick himself says "there can be no 'i' without 'u'." Life will always be hard, but self hatred can be avoided. Self love can be achieved, you must battle the struggle of loving yourself in the face of strife. 

But then again...Loving you is complicated

Ugliness and Beautiness

OK, quick question. Who the hell decides what makes a person beautiful and what makes a person ugly. Seriously though. Also, who the hell decides that we all have to agree to this standard of beauty. You know when I read the question "Is race a social construct?" I scoffed and didn't think much of it. But after much research i concluded that race is indeed a social construct. Now if someone were to ask me "Is beauty a social construct?" I wouldnt research it at all because the answer is obviously yes. The concept of beauty and reaching the perceived standard of it has ruined many lives and made many people feel terrible about themselves. We are constantly being bombarded with how we should look and what we should wear by society. Billboards, movies, television, and advertisements all perpetuate the backwards standards about beauty that we all have to live with.
The Bluest Eye delves into the emotional effects that these beauty standards can have on people. "Each night, without fail, she prayed for blue eyes" (page 46) Pecola wishes and wishes for blue eyes and she hates herself because she doesn't have them. This is a terrible thought and a terrible feeling. Imagine hating yourself because of how you look. Something you have no control over. There are times when everybody thinks this. Sometimes I wish I was taller but at the end of the day I can't control that and I'm happy. For other people though, they don't realize that and they start to hate themselves over what they can't control. To solve this issue I think that there needs to be more emphasis on self love instead of the same old standards everyone strives for.

Puzzle Paragraph 2

While others say beauty is in the eyes of the beholder; others disagree with that sentiment and strive for what they believe is society's standards for beauty. Disliking yourself because of the way you look is worse than being disliked by others for the way you look. It's worse because you are accepting this and internalizing it. You are the one believing that you are ugly and you start to loathe yourself. Loathing yourself is arguably worse than gambling all of your money in a casino in the author's opinion. Loathing yourself and being lonely can make you feel like the Lone Ranger. Toni Morrison describes Pecola in the foreword as an important character who was meant to have people look into themselves however she tries to show Pecolas suffering without making the other characters villainous. In this passage Morrison examines her friend wanting blue eyes even though she is black, she tries not to make it seem like she's profiling but she does not think her friend needs blue eyes because it's not right.  She believes she needs to embrace her race and all the beauties of being black. This book is not a memoir but it feels like an expression of feelings and thoughts of the author. There may be truth in this book and there may not be truth, but the author will create verisimilitude about life through writing about the main characters battle with herself and with society. This book will have passion and hopefully, it will evoke a fire from the readers.               

The Idiotic Theory of Scientific Racism

Scientific racism is "the use of  scientific techniques and hypotheses to support or justify the belief in racism, racial inferiority, racialism, or racial superiority" Thankfully this theory has been denounced by the scientific community since the 1950's, however at one point in history, this was widely believed and used to enslave, kill, and mistreat other races. One particular example of this theory being used for evil is the holocaust and nazi movement. The Nazi's used this theory to justify their awful treatment of jews in concentration camps as well as the whole holocaust in general. They believed that the aryan race was the only race fit enough to be worthy of life. They also classified many other types of people into the "unfit category", which led to the extermination jews, homosexuals, and mentally disabled. 

The one thing that MAUS does exceptionally well is portraying what the nazis did in such an accurately historical manner. On page 58 of volume 2 they show this theory of "unfit" being applied. They selected who was fit enough to live and who was unfit to die. 

The thing about scientific racism that scared me the most was that it was used in the united states as well. I was doing research and I stumbled across what scientific racists believed in regards to blacks. Scientific racists "described black men as uniquely fitted for bondage, because of their "primitive psychological organization".In 1851, in antebellum Louisiana, the physician Samuel A. Cartwright (1793–1863), considered slave escape attempts as "drapetomania", a treatable mental illness, that 'with proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many Negroes have of running away can be almost entirely prevented'."(Samuel Sillen "racism and psychiatry, 1972)

This theory is probably the worst theory ever created, it's even worse that it was applied as vehemently as it was in the U.S and nazi germany. This has caused so many unnecessary deaths in our world. At the end of the day, there is only ONE race; the human race. 

MAUS

I'm not gonna lie. When Ms. Valentio handed me MAUS and told me to read the first chapter I looked at the cover and I was really confused. Why is there a swastika? Why does hitler look like a cat? And why is there mice hugging each other? Before even opening the book I decided to analyze the cover and i realized what it was trying to portray. It was trying to say that during the holocaust, jews were mice to the german, who were cats. It made total sense to me and I was excited to read it, but then I actually opened the book and it was in comic form. The whole thing. I've never actually read a comic before so I was excited to do so. This whole book has been very enjoyable and very effective for me and  actually think that this form may be more effective than a book in portraying the pain and emotions in history. The page that I want to show will exemplify this.

Page 108/109


This panel is so incredible to me because it is able to show so many things that just words alone could not do. We see that vladek is looking incredibly skinny which is because of not being fed at the concentration camp. This is subtle but can only be shown through pictures. I think that an author just describing to us that vladek was skinny wouldn't do the actuality of it much justice, but since there is a picture to show us it does. His emotion are portrayed in this panel as well. We see the anger and the sadness, and the nervousness by just looking into his eyes. Without the words the reader could still interpret what he is feeling just by the drawing alone.

I'm not necessarily saying that comics are better than books, but i do feel that comics are very important and can show the reader many things that just words on a paper could not.
Thanks for reading! What are your thoughts?