Meta-Post

For me, the most interesting part of the blog is appreciating the connection between what we talk about class, and various current event in our world. I find that each week there is something we talk about in class that comes to mind when I read or listen to current news events. I've compared migrant workers to slaves, and a quote from Juan Williams to a picture, "A Negro in his Homeland". The connections are not made by sitting down, thinking of what our class is talking about, and then looking at news articles. For my blogs, I find connections while writing notes in class or just thinking, and  can just jot down a connection to expand on later. I now realize that at the beginning of the year I wrote about too many connections, the majority of which were too weak to use in my blog because the connections were obviously forced. For example, when we talked about collaboration, I thought of a blog about how many smaller newspapers take articles from larger papers like the New York Times, a concept  I learned in my journalism class. Although there is a connection, there is no debatable stance I could take while writing this, making it an uninteresting and less provocative blog. Now I make fewer connections, but connections that are stronger, and can relate to a bigger picture, and that are more controversial. On a more recent blog titled Monolithic, I claim that Juan Williams comment that when he sees Muslims in airports dressed in Muslim garb, who first and foremost identify themselves as Muslim, he gets scared. I make the claim that he is being a racist. This stance is more controversial, and opens my blog up for debate, because many people believe what Juan Williams said was not in fact racist, but just an honest expression of how he feels.

Also, I find a key part of the blog the specific title I assign to the post. Although I sometimes choose generic titles that simply state the topic of discussion, I also choose to have a more provocative title such as "Human Stock" or "Muslim Problem" because they are more likely to grab readers from class, who, for the most part, are my audience. Not only does the title grab readers attention, but it can determine the tone for a specific post. A post titled "Human Stock" sets up the point I try to make in my blog, that we care too much about how colleges may see us, and not actually do things that we like to do.

Note: Read "Human Stock" as my blog

"Muslim Problem"

I watched The O'Reilly Factor with a person who considers herself a liberal, and then watched the Daily Show with a conservative.  Throughout the O'Reilly Factor, the liberal viewer was upset by contradictions she believed O'Reilly made, and his constant and nasty name-calling. This show is made for a certain audience of people, just like The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was written for a specific group of people.  

Douglass thanks "his providence" many times in the book for his good fortune, because Douglass wants to appeal to his readers, who are almost entirely Christian. Bill O'Reilly talks about a "Muslim Problem" in our country. He considers this "problem" to be the cause of the terror attacks on 9/11. The current manifestation of this problem, according to O'Reilly, is that moderate Muslims do not speak out against extremists. This appeals to much of his audience, which is still very angry and disapproving of Muslims in general. By going on TV and saying that he has negative feelings for Muslims, he gains fans and higher ratings.

When I watched the Daily Show with a conservative, he was upset that there was no conservative voice when Jon Stewart, the host, mocked a variety of Fox hosts. This show is also directed to a certain audience of people. Jon Stewart shows a string of clips of Fox anchors talking about how tragic Juan Williams' firing is, and overall makes Fox look bad for overly dramatizing the situation. This appeals to his audience, which is mostly younger, and mostly liberal, by making a conservative news source look bad, but in a comical and irreverent way.

From this I have seen that depending on the audience, not only the points a show can make are different, but the entire format of the show can depend on which audience the show is targeting.

Monolithic

This week in class we looked at pictures, and saw how they represented slaves as a monolithic entity. For example, the title of the picture “The Negro in his home Country” makes all blacks seem the same. By using the word “the” it unifies all blacks as if all blacks are the same.

This weekend the Fox News Network’s show Huckabee, hosted by former pastor and Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, interviewed the recently fired news analyst for NPR, Juan Williams. Williams has not been fired from his other job as a political commentator for Fox News. NPR fired Williams because Williams stated on another Fox News show that he felt scared and anxious when he saw Muslims in Muslim garb at airports. He says he is not a bigot. If someone were to say “when I see black people on the street I get scared”, is that not considered racist? Juan Williams is scared of all Muslims in Muslim garb, because of fourteen Muslims involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Therefore, he sees all Muslims as a single monolithic entity. Sometimes, even today in this country, everyone in a race or a religion will be grouped together and assigned a negative characteristic by some people.

Human Stock

After watching the video  clip from A Race to Nowhere, I began to think about how this stress in school  relates to happiness. This got me thinking about Finland, and how recently they were polled the happiest country in the world. I wondered what type of schooling they had in Finland, and how the schooling may directly lead to their happiness. Interestingly enough, Mr. O'Connor soon added that Finish school were taught by team teachers. From an article I read (http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/world/Finland.html) I learned that the school day is shorter, and there are more frequent breaks in the day. I believe relaxation and enjoyment in free time leads not only to happier people, but more successful students. As Mr. O'Connor said in class, New Trier has the fewest number of school days, and highest average on test scores. Although there must be some school, school should not force young adults to spend the majority of their time studying or in school, but rather enjoying life, and finding true passions.

We also discussed in class how grades in many districts could be checked online, and Mr. Bolos compared checking grades online to checking the stock market. High school students care way to much about their human stock, how colleges look at them. Recently, I became a member on a student board for an organization called Haven, which helps teenagers deal with problems without having to confront their parents. At the first meeting the various positions, president, vice president, etc. were announced. My peers told me they only cared about what their resume would look like, they wouldn't put in the full effort their position deserved. This is because their motivation is to build their resume for application to college, not to find a passion, or help others, or give back to the community. We are expected to volunteer and give our time to service, so this just creates another requirement that has to be fulfilled in order to be competitive on our college applications.

Gay Marriage

While working on my interview and writing the opening in italics, I wrote that my interviewee, a woman, had a child and was married. I emailed this to her, and she corrected me by saying that she wasn't legally married. This is because my interviewee's partner was also a woman, and same-sex marriage is not legal in Illinois. Although I knew this, it still seemed strange to me. They have a child, own a house, live and work in our community, and have been together as a couple for several years, yet they are not married. At first I just thought about how strange the situation was, but soon I began thinking about what implications this law has. First, they cannot share healthcare. Although my interviewee's job should also cover her partner's healthcare, it does not. Her partner is self-employed, and therefore must buy her own healthcare separately, which is much more expensive. Second, the fact they cannot celebrate being together with a wedding  infers that society chooses to reject their relationship. Third, if one of them had to go to the hospital, the other partner would not even be allowed to visit her, because "legally" they aren't family. Also, my interviewee gave birth, and her partner had to go through a long and stressful process of adopting that son, which was also expensive, because "legally" the child wasn't hers. Even if our society is not yet ready to accept same-sex marriage, can't we start by limiting stupid restrictions like these?