If I Were A Poor Black Kid....

            I just read the article “If I Were A Poor Black Kid” by Gene Marks (http://www.forbes.com/sites/quickerbettertech/2011/12/12/if-i-was-a-poor-black-kid/) and I agree with some of what he said, but also disagree. Marks’s outlook on a poor black kid’s opportunities is very positive, but my question is if that is truly how it is? Marks did make the comment that most kids from inner city schools don’t know how to use the internet as a resource to help with their grades because of insufficient parenting or teachers. However, Marks failed to acknowledge the fact that in order to get to some of the places that offer computer services, a ‘young black kid’ might have to walk a long distance or take the bus alone. And as a nine year old kid trying to get to the library to read a book not provided at the school, or use the internet for help with math, walking to a library by her or himself in the inner city isn’t the safest situation. So, while I agree with Marks that opportunities are present, those opportunities aren’t as easily attainable as Marks leads us to believe. Another thing that greatly bothered me about Marks’s article is that how is being a poor black kid in the inner city any different than being a poor white kid in the inner city with equal disadvantages? It’s not.

            After becoming slightly agitated with Mr. Gene Marks, I read an article in response to his “If I Were a Poor Black Kid” spiel by Jenée Desmond-Harris (http://www.theroot.com/buzz/if-i-were-poor-black-kid-pushback). He was also befuddled by Marks’s need to affiliate a poor kid in the inner city with dark skin, and backed up my opinion that it’s not as easy as Marks wants to believe it is. He said how Marks “presented some now-infamous ideas for how he would personally rise to success if he suddenly found himself young, African American and poverty-stricken.” The response is generally sarcastic towards Marks and his ingorance to the reality of inner city schooling. Desmond-Harris made the point a kid who could barely access a computer would have no idea how to “’become an expert at Google Scholar’ and regularly peruse the CIA World Factbook….[and] get himself into a top school, and [then] ‘succeed.’” Altogether, while he made some good suggestions for a poor kid in the inner city who is familiar with using the inernet, Mark’s article was completely ignorant and did not consider the reality in the inner city.

Wrongful Convictions

         In 1994, a woman was found raped and murdered in Chicago. The police did not find any suspects for four months when they came looking for Terrill Swift. The police had Swift sign a piece of paper that they told him stated he was innocent of the crime, but was actually a false confession. After spending his life in jail since 1995, Swift was let out in January 2011. New evidence was presented with new technology that allowed the police to connect DNA from blood on the crime scene to a serial rapist and murderer. After around just one month of being let out of jail, Terrill Swift came to my school.

         The first thing that struck me about Swift was the way he talked and presented himself. I anticipated being faced with someone who looked like they had only been out of jail for a month; not very good clothes, not aware of social queues, nervous and maybe even emotional. But Terrill swift was none of those things; he was well presented, he spoke of his life with a steady voice, never hesitating to share what was going through his head when everything was going on. It surprised me that he laughed at the appropriate times and while he didn’t take his story lightly, he shared it without editing it which is sometimes the hardest thing to do.

         I found it very interesting when someone asked the question of what was the most difficult thing to adjust to when he got out of jail and he answered with communication. While he had mentioned the struggle at first of finding a job, he did not name it as his biggest difficulty. I saw what a great person he truly is that something like communication, which we take advantage of every day, was so important to him. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the idea of walking out of jail into a world completely different from the one I remembered. While he was in jail, the cell phone industry boomed, digital cameras went to a whole new level, TVs in HD emerged, the entire world of technology became something Swift never could’ve imagined it to be, and he missed all of it. That was the part that bothered me most about what happened to him; everything he missed. He missed the college experience, the ability to get a job without having to explain himself, to start a family. While he was able to go to college in jail and he can start a family now, his wrongful conviction robbed him of his time to live life.

Racism: The IAT Test

I just took the Race IAT test to see if I have any bias, and it turned out that I have a slight preference to black people. I am white and this result surprised me mostly because I have only personally known four black people in my lifetime and the rest have been white. However, I do not believe that this test truly tested if we are racist or not. I think the test was based off of reflexes and how quickly you can hit the space bar when you see specific words or faces. I do not believe that I am biased in any way towards people based on their race. I cannot say that I do not have thoughts regarding stereotypes, but I would never deprive someone of equal opportunity because of their race. 

In my opinion, there are people who are racist and there are people who are prejudiced. I believe that all people are slightly prejudiced because we all grow up in different areas and cultures that influence how we think about a certain race or religion or ethnicity. Prejudice is when you are biased or think certain thoughts about someone subconsciously. It’s those thoughts you have when you first see a person and we all have them. To me, being racist is when you go out of your way to offend another race, religion or ethnicity. When your thoughts are directed at people based on the color of their skin or prayer book in their hand. And most especially someone is racist when they base their words and actions on something we can’t really control; our race or ethnicity. 

           Some people believe that by admitting to the fact that we are prejudiced will help stop discrimination in the world. But I disagree because the fact of the matter is that no matter whether or not we admit that we are prejudiced, we’re still going to have those same thoughts about people. Admitting it won’t make it go away. I do not believe that prejudice is a problem because everyone has it about everyone else. Racism is the problem and in order to target that, we need to just keep doing what we’re doing; we are learning to accept people for who they are. It has been a slow process, but it’s not something that can be rushed. We can’t stop stereotypes from surfacing or prejudices from being in our minds, but we can change who we interact with and how we do so.

No Cupcakes Allowed...Yea That Might Be the New Sign Posted at Airports

I found an article about airport security recently that shares the story of a woman who wanted to take a cupcake--yes a cupcake--on an airplane and was not allowed to. According to a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent, the woman attempted to bring the cupcake in a "jar filled with icing" onto the plane in her carry-on bag. The woman was stopped as the amount of jelly inside her cupcake exceeded the limits of 'gel' allowed on a plane (According to: http://blog.tsa.gov/2012/01/cupcakegate.html).

As much as I would like to poke fun at this, I do agree with the agent's decision in confiscating the cupcake because they were acting in the best interest of the people. Aside from the cupcake issue, airport security has been adjusted drastically post-nine-eleven. I believe that it is truly an issue of convenience vs. safety, and in my opinion, if I have to wait in line for an hour with a screaming baby behind me in order to ensure my safety, I will do it. So much of our society is based off of fast, fast, fast. Fast talking (texting), fast travel (cars going 120 mph with a speed limit of 55), fast food (Mcdonalds, etc.). We are used to fast and we get anxious when things don't go as quickly and smoothly as we planned. But if it meant saving your life, wouldn't you be willing to slow things down a bit?

I presented this issue to my class today, and one of my colleagues told me a story about how she had a little pedicure kit in her carry on that she didn’t realize had a Swiss-army switchblade in it. When she got to her hotel and was doing her nails, she realized it was in there. This was after having gone through security. My teacher then went on to tell the class that he had gotten through security with an actual switchblade knife in his carry on. No one stopped him and it was not detected in his bag whatsoever. My class seemed to support the argument of the agent from the cupcake article, saying that security should be increased because of average people getting through undetected.

So while security lines can be inconvenient, especially when it’s been forty-five minutes and the baby with new parents behind you won’t stop crying, it is important to remember that security is not there to piss us off; it is there to protect us. And, just a word of advice, if you want security to go as fast as possible, take precautions because you’re not just making the line longer for yourself. Moral to the story; if you really want a cupcake, just eat it before you get to the airport.

The Help Blog Chapters 31-34: The Ugly Truth

           In the final chapters of Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, she explored an area in life that we rarely touch upon. It is what is hidden underneath our words, in our minds and is rarely expressed. It is part honesty and part cruelty, but sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. Stockett let loose the ugly truth.

           Every single word in the book Skeeter wrote spills the secrets of the help and of the women they have worked for. For some of the help, the book ruins their lives and they are fired. But for others, things turn out better than before. Willie May had worked for a woman for thirty seven years and after the book came out, her and the woman she served sat at the same table for the very first time. Sometimes in life we just don’t realize things until they’re shoved right up in our faces. It could be that we’re too naïve, but most of the time it’s because there’s just too much going on around us. The ugly truth in America isn’t that there is one; but that we don’t recognize it ourselves. It’s because we’re scared that we can’t handle it. In my opinion, how are we supposed to know if we can handle it if we don’t even know what it is? We can’t.

When Minny is lying in her bed, praying to G-d that Leroy doesn’t start a fight with her, she thinks about her life and what has saved her from him. Why he hasn’t given her a hard enough blow to end it all. She realizes it’s her children, because that’s all Leroy has to leave in this world when he’s gone. And he wants to make sure he has enough of them. So Minny finally looks down at her stomach and tells herself why he isn’t beating her tonight; “because that’s the only thing that saved me, this baby in my belly. And that is the ugly truth” (413). It’s not easy for Minny to accept that a baby is what saves her from her own husband instead of their love, but as I wrote in my last post, that’s just the way it is. And that’s why Minny was able to kick Leroy out. She admitted to herself what she knew all along and accepted it. It made her stronger. And that’s what we sometimes have to learn. You can sugarcoat things, you can lie with all your might, but it doesn’t take the truth away no matter how ugly it may be.

The other part of this concept that Stockett shows us is that we have to sometimes acknowledge other people’s ugly truths, because we’re not the only ones who have them. When Aibileen is worried about the women finding out her and the maids and Skeeter wrote the book, she begins to realize that this book has made them free. If they get fired, at least they were able to write this book and free themselves from the guilt of not doing anything. They’d be “freer than Miss Leefolt, who so locked up in her own head she don’t even recognize herself when she read it” (444). And that’s the ugly truth that Aibileen realizes about Miss Leefolt; she’s oblivious and doesn’t even love her daughter enough to give her a hug good morning. Aibileen thought about the book and about her own ugly truth and moved on because she understood that everyone has their ugly truth and nothing would change that.

This becomes an issue with teenagers, because for the half of the day were not in school were sitting at our computers, locked up in our rooms, watching perfect actresses on TV, looking through the profile pictures of that gorgeous girl you wish you were or at the gorgeous boy you wish you had. It eats away at teenagers and we look in mirror and ask why we don’t have that. We internalize it and think it’s our own fault. It leads us to believe that we’re the only one who feels this way because everyone else is better and everyone else has something in their life and we have nothing. We forget to consider that someone else is doing the same thing we are. Stockett proves that there’s another person and many more doing the same thing we are and feeling the same things we are. In this book, she proves it by showing the town of Jackson that everyone has their own ugly truth.

Invisible Children

                I am on Student Council at my high school and was a part of deciding the two possible beneficiaries for our school to vote on for our yearly charity drive. When it came down to the two, I knew right away that Invisible Children would be the winner. After seeing the documentaries and hearing an escaped child soldier speak, I knew that I wanted to help their cause and that so many others would, too. Jedidiah Jenkins spoke to our school and his speech revolved around us. Us as in ourselves; just teenagers attending a high school surrounded by a bubble known as the North Shore of Chicago. He told us that we can make a difference. And looking at the pictures and watching the videos of students our age rallying for change; we couldn’t deny that we could do it, too.

                I believe that Invisible Children puts the money they have raised towards good causes. They are creating tangible things for the children, whether its books, schools, communication devices or just basic necessities. This organization allows us to see where our money goes; it makes our donations visible, and in turn should do so to the invisible children. Parts of their website, such as their crisis tracker, allow us to see what’s happening. Just looking at it right now, it says that there have been ZERO civilian deaths and ZERO abductions. I truly believe that our help is what has allowed this number to stay at zero, and looking at that number all I can think is that I want to do whatever it takes to keep that number at zero.

                Watching a documentary impacted me a lot. It is very helpful that the organization has so many documentaries to watch as it is hard to believe what is happening to these kids without seeing it through our own eyes. It is so easy to relate to the kids who are filmed in the documentaries because they are our age, they like the things we like and love to act like normal kids. During one of the documentaries I watched a man who escaped after being a child soldier said, “The question for life is for all; for any color.” His words really hit me. He put into words what really was going on; anyone can die any given day. It doesn’t matter where you’re from or the color of your skin. When it comes to death, we are all put at the same level. No one is greater than another. It is the same with birth; we were all children at one point, as weak and vulnerable as the rest. The difference is that if someone got abducted and was forced to be a child solider in the United States, the entire world would know about it. Everyone in the US would do everything they could to help. But when a child is abducted in Northern Uganda, forced to kill his family, carry a gun and bow down to a mass murderer, no one hears about it. There’s no Amber Alert in Africa. That is one of the things that Invisible Children is trying to change and why I believe in this organization more than any other; they are giving the child soldiers a voice. And a loud voice, too. This organization has decided to make the invisible children of Africa visible.

The Help Blog Chapters 27-30: The Way It Is

             Sometimes it seems as if the world works in a certain way, and that’s just the way it is. Throughout chapters 27 through 30, Stockett brings forward the idea that things have always been a certain way. It is a concept that has caused people to struggle in society and is a major issue in every day life. There are the general concepts such as models have always been skinny and if you want to be on the runway you have to look like a twig, and that’s just the way it is. Or there’s the smaller issues, such as if you live in certain towns and go to certain high schools, you are going to college once you graduate. That’s just the way it is. And back in 1964, in the Help, things were a certain way and were going to stay that way. That’s just the way it was.

            This concept is something that Miss Skeeter had to learn the hard way. Trying to become a writer in a world where women are housewives is quite difficult, especially when no one around her was being supportive. Miss Skeeter knew that becoming a journalist and author would be a challenge, and she was ready to face it. However, she was still surprised when Missus Stein slapped her across the face with reality when she said, “’If you’re a nobody, as you are, Miss Phelan, before the twenty first is your window. Your only window’” (343). Missus Stein was giving her the deadline of December 21 instead of January as she had told Miss Skeeter earlier. Miss Skeeter did not think that it was fair, but soon realized that in the world of journalism and as a woman are already a disadvantaged party, that’s just the way it is.

            Skeeter is also met with the reality of consistency in society when her mother acts like a real mother for the first time. All her life, Miss Skeeter’s mother acted harsh and cruel towards her, constantly nagging at her about this and that. However when Stuart shows up, her moms says, “’If Stuart doesn’t know how intelligent and kind I raised you to be, he can march straight on back to State Street…Frankly, I don’t care much for Stuart. He doesn’t know how lucky he was to have you’” (357). Miss Skeeter was in shock that her mother said this, but quickly understood. Her mother had to be harsh on her in order for Skeeter to turn out the way she did. Miss Skeeter is so accepting of people because her mother is not. But also, her mother had to prepare her for the realities of the world and that people aren’t going to be nice to her all the time. Mothers eventually define true motherhood, but it takes time and that’s just the way it is no matter how difficult it may be.

            Miss Skeeter’s mother also shows her that some things in life are a certain way and they cannot be changed when she is diagnosed with cancer. Her mother’s diagnosis was very hard for Miss Skeeter to accept. As she was hysterically crying at one point, her mother said, “’Now stop that, Eugenia. It can’t be helped’” (371). In this moment, Miss Skeeter realized that her mother truly was intelligent and accepting of her situation. It was the first time Skeeter looked up to her mother, as well as realized that things are what they are and she can’t always change them. Throughout these chapters, Skeeter shifts into a hippie-like person, as Aibileen describes it. The inspiration to change her beliefs came from her mother. She realized things will work themselves out in the way they were planned to be. By the end of these chapters, Skeeter is successful with her book which allowed Stockett to prove that Skeeter has finally come to terms with the fact that things are what they are and that’s just the way it is.