February 27

Uncle Tom is angry with Wright because Wright is not allowing Uncle Tom to rule over him. Uncle Tom wants to punish Wright for having an attitude with him when he asked what time it was. Wright was not trying to be rude when replying, so he decided that he had no reason to be punished. A part of me also feels that Uncle Tom was mad because he wished that he could have stood up to authority when he was Wrights age. It seemed a bit like jealousy mixed with anger that caused Uncle Tom to react the way he did. Wright was upset with Tom because he was trying to rule Wright’s life when he had never done anything for him before. By standing up to Uncle Tom, Wright showed Tom and his family that he was strong and was not going to be ruled by him or anyone. This established Wright’s ability to be independent and responsible for himself. 

February 26

Wright feels gratified after sharing his writing with his neighbor because he sees that he can have an influence on the lives of other people. He has seen that he can get a positive emotional response from people, which is the opposite of what he gets from his family members. Wright realizes that he can impact other people with the stories that he writes. It not only gives him pleasure but it gives other people pleasure. It gives him the feeling of purpose in life because he has found something that he enjoys and that does not hurt or bother other people. He also feels gratified because he has the ability to read and write and not many of the other people around him can do that. So this in turn makes him even prouder of the stories he has written. 

February 24

At first, Wright was motivated to work when his mother became paralyzed. He got jobs working to make money and he kept track of his brother. He also did the household chores that his mother used to do. After a while, he became paralyzed as well. He as paralyzed because he was trying to act like an adult and take care of everything when really the responsibility was too much for him. Although the neighbors helped, Wright was still left with a huge burden of taking care of everything. Wright also refused food because he did not want to people to look down upon him because he wanted them to think that he was capable of getting his own food.. Another one of his responses was to write a letter to his grandmother asking for help. This showed his maturity and responsibility even if he could not take care of everything himself. 

February 23

Wright saying that disliking Jews was “part of his heritage” was just like the whites disliking the blacks. He had started to observe how white people treated black people and he wondered why people were treated that way. It was especially apparent in chapter one where he doesn’t see the problem with a “white” man beating a “black” boy because he thought it was a father and son. This is the first time he learns of the problems between the two groups. It interesting how he saw that situation to be different than him making fun of Jewish people especially those in the store. Wright was creating the same violence as the whites were, but he didn’t even know it. To him it was two totally different matters, but it seemed that it could be directly related to the situation betweens the blacks and whites which he didn’t understand. 

February 20

Wright is hungry because he lacks a figure in his life. Even though he knows both of his parents, he lacks a person with compassion. He needs someone that will be kind to him and teach him instead of treating him like an adult and beating him. Wright’s father was never kind to him, but he did spend less time whipping Wright than his mother did, so he associated a bit more kindness with his father. When his father left, he was left with sympathy from his mother, but with that sympathy also came emotional struggle. This in turn caused him more pain, which is why he was hungry. His grandmother visited them and brought money for food which was helped the actual hunger, but it also took away some of the struggle for him. This took away his true reason for being hungry. The hunger comes from needing a compassionate person in his life. 

February 18

I do agree to a point that we don’t need to go to school. I was able to relate to the article that many things that I learn in school will probably never help me in my everyday job, they are only teaching me to comply with the rules. Having come from a public school, I understand the need to entertain ones self when they are bored, it happened a lot and I just got used to dealing with it. With this boredom, it seems that it would be easier to skip school and simply learn by myself. On the other hand, if I didn’t go to school I would be unaware and unprepared for the “real” world. I have cousins that are home schooled, which I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with. The problem with them though is that they are shocked by people having to follow the rules and deal with boredom like most students deal with everyday. There is a part of me that agrees that school is not necessary, however our culture is set up to revolve around school. If you don’t attend school than you are totally unprepared for the rest of the American culture you will experience. 

February 17

I do value my nonacademic education to a point. The idea of being successful and having a job is definitely something that I feel is part of the environment at school. If the teachers don’t have confidence in us outside of the classroom and tell us we can do anything, than we will not go on to be successful. Religious education is not something that I take advantage of. I don’t feel that it is a large part of my nonacademic life at school in large part because University is not affiliated with any religion. I personally believe that it is better that way, so I am not likely to value what little religious influence there is. The political influence plays quite a large role in my nonacademic education because of the environment that I live in and attend school. There is a huge push in one direction, so I feel that I learn quite a lot just from being around other students. It is something that I value because without discussions with other people, it would not have the same affect on me. 

February 12

The presentations today were very interesting. I especially liked Steve’s presentation on the pictures of his neighborhood. I thought that it was really interesting that there were so many restrictions for one neighborhood. I guess when you think about the reputation of Carmel it fits, but it is ridiculous when you really stop and think about it. My neighborhood has a few limitations, but eight pages seems extremely harsh for one neighborhood. There were two pictures of the clock towers in Carmel. I had never really thought about how pretentious the clock towers were, but once Marta explained her thoughts on it; it was amazing how pretentious that park in Carmel really is. The overall theme of the presentations today seemed to be that Carmel is extremely pretentious and that they spend a ton of money to make things look old in the arts and design district. 

February 9

I do agree with Kendall that the media changes our view on social equality. It is especially hard to see how different classes are living when the main people in the public eye are rich. Kendall does a good job of describing this and how lower class people are only displayed as homeless or something terrible instead of giving them credit for working as hard as they do. I do not think that watching TV makes Americans inclined to have credit card debt, but I think that TV shows validate it. Everyone seems to know that being in debt is bad or not ideal, but TV shows use it more as an afterthought than a serious dilemma. If debt was portrayed differently than I feel that people would react differently. The idea seems to be if everyone else has debt especially those on TV, than it’s ok for “me”, the ordinary person to have debt. I think debt will only be thought of as how it is portrayed on TV.

February 6

Yesterday I spent quite a bit of time thinking about where I wanted to go to get pictures for my rhetoric project. I ended up taking some pictures at my brother’s basketball game and of the JCC grounds. I think that the pictures I took will work out pretty well for the project, if need be I can go and take more. I tried to be creative with my pictures and think a lot about the rhetoric in them before I decided on them. This project has been a lot harder than I thought it would be because I have never actually applied and thought about rhetoric in my everyday life. I struggled yesterday with getting images that I thought displayed rhetoric and that I could explain in writing. 

February 5

Gitlin is saying that the American media appeals to the pathos of other people. At one point he says that English is the best language for different forms of media because it is so short and concise. This shows that the people that know English are going to be pulled into the American media bubble. Also, Gitlin says that Disney pulls many of their stories from stories of other countries. What better way to make people want to see American films than make them about stories that they grew up with? To a point I agree with Gitlin. I believe that people are more drawn to the American media because companies like Disney create movies off of stories from other countries. If I were living in another country and Disney made a movie of a story that I grew up with, I would most likely want to take part in watching that movie. It is a realistic idea that I can relate too. I am not as convinced about the idea that people are drawn to American media because of English. I’m sure that it helps, but there are plenty of other countries that produce movies in English.  

February 2

Kilbourne says that it is dangerous to depict men and women as sex objects because it is degrading to everyone and makes the outcome of the products unrealistic. Depicting women as sex objects is more degrading because the society displays women as property of men, therefore pushing that man should continue to rape and beat women. I do agree with Kilbourne that the advertisements promote harassment of women more than men. Beer commercials are especially big on promoting that idea. It seems ridiculous in my mind that people would create images that completely lower the confidence of women and promote hatred mentally or physically towards them. In my opinion, this encouragement of ideas is not worth putting people in danger for in order to sell products. Although most commercials put forward the idea of sex and women being property, the country should not be supportive of these products because it would force the companies to change their way of advertising. 

February 1

As I watch the Super Bowl commercials right now, I have found that the products that are being advertised are smaller, cheaper products than the normal Super Bowl products. I have seen all of the usual beer commercials, but there haven’t been as many car commercials. There have only been two car commercials and it is already half time. The 3D commercials were an interesting way to get people interested. I think that it drew a lot more attention to the movie commercials. They are usually overlooked during the Super Bowl. The 3D commercials were a bit of a let down because they weren’t really that special and they weren’t funny. Right now, during half time, the commercials seem to be getting worse, they aren’t displaying anything funny or different than the movie commercials. I am hoping for some better commercials in the second half.