The Price of Charity

Today in class we had a great discussion about the recent Kony 2012 movement, and something Mr. O'Connor said really struck me. He said that many people hear of an issue in the world and immediately turn to their checkbooks, thinking, "How much do I have to make this check out for in order to forget about what's happening?"

This is an idea I've been contemplating for a while. The fact that people, especially in our society, consider writing a check and donating money as the same thing as time and hard work spent on improving an unfortunate situation. This is the reason for the countless benefits held for charities. Money is thrown around during silent auctions, live auctions, and raffle games. You even have to pay to be on the list. And if you make a large enough donation, your name will be mentioned several times! Once they have donated, they seem to think that the issue is resolved, when in reality it takes much more than a check to get rid of the problem.    

Colbert even satirized this concept in last night's episode of the Colbert Report during his interview with Katherine Boo (4:10-4:26) when he is talking about the slums in Mumbai, India. He asks Boo how much he has to pay in order to forget about the people in the slums, because if he thinks about them he'll want to pay more, and paying more will drain his bank account. Although he paints this in a comedic light, he makes me wonder: is it better to write a check for, say, $2,500 to a certain organization or is it better to spend a week or so during the summer helping to improve a third world country?

Comedic Racism

The other day, my mom sent me the following clip:

This show, Key & Peele, airs on Comedy Central. You may know them for their spoofs of President Obama. What I think is interesting in this clip is that both men switch between their real voices and the voices they think the other expects them to have. The latter voice is also what the TV viewers of America expect. This time, Key & Peele are making a spoof off of what America wants to see. Not all African Americans speak that way, but that is definitely something that the majority of America either doesn't know or chooses not to take into account.

When Peele (black vest) walks away, he states that he was about to get mugged- something a white person would stereotypically say. This is obviously racist, so why do we laugh? This is something I've been seeing- and hearing- a lot. African Americans will exploit the racism towards them by using derogatory language in their songs and acting in a stereotypical way on the screen. Why do they do this? My belief is that they do this to devalue the words and actions. By using them themselves, it can't mean a whole lot when other people use them in a negative way towards them. 

Honestly, I'm not sure whether or not this is very effective. If my theory is correct, there will soon be a time where derogatory terms will be flying openly all over the place and that could be hazardous. Just because you hear them frequently doesn't mean they are OK to use. 

What are your thoughts? Do you think that the devaluing of these derogatory terms and actions will make it OK for anyone to use them at any time, or do you think that it is better to emphasize that these terms and actions are wrong and hurtful? 

Arrested Development

Arrested Development, a FOX show, began in 2003 and was cancelled in 2006 after it had run for 4 seasons. It has been characterized as a "dramedy," or a drama and a comedy. I believe it pertains to the idea of TV Tokenism because its core characters- the Bluth family- are all white. Throughout the course of the seasons, there are several "tokens," such as Lupe (Lucille's maid), Annyoung (Lucille and George's adopted son from Korea), and Ice (a PI hired by the family and brief love interest for Lindsay). It seems as though the only revolving characters are from a minority, and this suggests that they were mainly brought on to please their respective groups. However, as time went on and it became more normal to have an actor from a minority stay on the show as a permanent character, Arrested Development failed to come to these terms. That is why I believe it stopped running. By the third season, the ratings were so low that FOX had to cancel it. Therefore, this show supports Mr. B's thesis (on newtwork channels the main characters are white and they are the ones who have the most complex lives whereas minority characters play a less complex role) because its failure to add minority characters as constant characters most likely led to its cancellation.

What's a Feminist?

For a while now, I've been noticing the taboo that goes along with feminism or being a feminist. How many times have you heard, "I'm not a feminist, but I do think women should get equal pay in the workplace"? I've heard it plenty, and it's starting to bother me a little bit.

I looked up the definition of feminism in the Merriam-Webster dictionary and got this: "The theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes; organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests."

According to this definition, women who claim they want to be treated equally but say they aren't feminists, in fact, are feminists. They may not be organizing activities that promote women's rights, but they are promoting equality between the sexes.

So why do they try to distance themselves from the label "feminist"? Why has feminism become almost as feared as Communism? Maybe it's because the only feminists in history who have spoken out have seemed rather radical. For example, the group of women who called themselves "The Feminists" never gained a very respectable rep. Their rules were way too harsh, like the rule that "only one-third [of its members] could be married or living with a man" (www.feminist.com). In my opinion, this isn't fair. Women should have been allowed to join no matter what their situation with men was. Also, wouldn't it show that women can be independent and strong even if they were with a man?

Radical groups such as The Feminists set a bad tone for the rest of the movement. Women who claimed they were feminists were automatically put in the radical category. In society's mind, there was no middle ground or such thing as a quiet feminist, and I still see this today. What people need to realize is that feminism not only has to do with equal pay and voting rights, it also has to do with the right to be in the military and the right to any type of contraceptives. What people also need to realize is that men can be feminists, too. A poll states that out of 100 people, 14 considered themselves feminists and 17 want their daughters to be feminists. If this is a reflection of America today, then what is the status of women going to be in the future? I encourage you to read the rest of the poll. I find the politics/media section really interesting.

A Lincoln Reconstruction

In honor of former President Lincoln's birthday today, several news sources (like the NYT) are coming out with a surprising story surrounding the famous painting of his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln.

Look familiar? That Lincoln broach resting on her chest and the love story that goes with the painting are heart warming. Apparently, Mary and a painter named Francis Carpenter- who stayed at the White House for some time- secretly worked on this portrait so that she could surprise her husband with it. Unfortunately, the president was assassinated before she could present it to him. 

It turns out that this story was untrue. An unknown painter who called himself Lew Bloom actually painted the following portrait of an unidentified woman:

When he heard that Mary had died, he painted over his work to make the woman look more like the president's widow and put Lincoln's face on a broach on her dress. He also reconstructed another story that convinced her descendants to pay a great amount of money for the painting. 

We have been talking about construction and reconstruction for a while now in American Studies, and this story makes me wonder about a person's motive for reconstructing a story. In the case of our reconstruction projects (where we had to reconstruct the Reconstruction era after the Civil War), the motive was to create a better and more fair life for the freedmen with the hope of reducing their 100-year wait for voting rights. In the case of this Mary Todd Lincoln painting, Bloom's motive was to take advantage of a sad situation in order to be rich. So reconstruction can be bad and it can be good, but my question is that in the end, will the outcome be the same as if there hadn't been a reconstruction? Bloom was found out and that caused distress on Lincoln's descendants. How do we know our reconstruction of the Reconstruction era would create a different outcome?

Whitewashing History

The Tea Party can't deny that slavery happened, but it will do everything it can to make sure it's not taught in schools. Right now, the party is focussed on Tennessee. According to a Huffington Post article, "The group is seeking to remove references to slavery and mentions of the country's founders being slave owners." They believe that much of the "criticism" surrounding these topics has been "made-up" and that it's the founding fathers' "progress that we need to look at."

This is a sad attempt to cover up the fact that the Southerners, namely most of the Founding Fathers, once thought it was OK to own people. Does the Tea Party think that if it isn't written in books or learned at school it didn't happen? By ignoring slavery, they ignore the reason our nation is the way it is.

Part of why the Tea Party thinks they can rule out slavery is due to the fact that "the Texas Board of Education approved revisions to its Social Studies curriculum that would put a conservative twist on history through revised textbooks and teaching standards" (HP article mentioned before). How scary is that? A group of people was so influential that textbooks will now contain material either excluding slavery or making slavery seem acceptable.

My question is this: if young people aren't taught the mistakes of the past, how can they be expected to produce a better future?

What it all Comes Down to: The Meta-Post

Well, it's the end of the semester, and that means a little self-reflection is in order. From 'To Standardize or not to Standardize?' all the way to 'A Disconnected Nation', many transformations have occurred. At the same time, some things have stayed constant.

As strange as it is for me to say, relating my posts to America has been my biggest challenge. As I learned about the country and furthered my analysis skills in my American studies class, I became more comfortable critiquing it and some of its decisions in post such as 'Clash of the Races', where I said, "America prides itself in being a tolerant nation while at the time time being racist against people who aren't white." I was originally worried that critiquing America would seem unpatriotic, but later say that critiquing was necessary. Especially when blogging. I've learned that a blog, in order to prompt discussion, must discuss a controversial topic.

A theme that has recurred in my blog is Social Darwinism, found in at least three of my posts. In 'People and their Masks', I wrote about how, due to Social Darwinism, "[Americans] feel that we are better than the rest of the world." 'Unhealthy Competition' exhibits the corruption in America that people experience while fighting to be the fittest: "People come to America expecting a fair fight to the top, but like The Crucible says, 'spies of each side are at work undermining the other'." The political aspect is discussed in 'Who really IS to Blame?': "Politicians with the fewest amount of flaws excel and the ones with more than a few flaws fail."The topic of Social Darwinism is important to me because I experience it every day- at school, among friends, at home. The people in the society I live in are constantly competing.

The blog I am least proud of is 'Intelligence vs. Entertainment', where I mention the insignificance of a vet-turned-ballroom-dancer and the significance of a Russian spy ring in America, but never actually develop the explanation behind my claims. I wasn't as invested in this topic as I had been in others, and that really showed. The post was short, lacked analysis, and had two pictures. The pictures, I admit, were an attempt to make the blog look longer. You will notice that the posts I really cared about have small pictures and many words, compared to this blog post that has two pictures and not many words.

I would have to say that 'A Disconnected Nation' is the post I am the most proud of thus far. I was able to connect a book I was reading on my own time to the ever-present topic in class of the American Dream. I made a claim- "I don't think individual communities try to 'relate' to other communities. That is why the nation is so racially and culturally segregated."- and backed it up with analysis and personal experience. That, to me, shows improvement in my writing.

All in all, I've enjoyed writing this blog. I hope that my posts will only get better during second semester!