Media 2 week 5

"Remember the Titans"

"Remember the Titans" is a movie about two schools ( a black school and a white school) that become integrated into one. This was never heard of in Virginia and segregation was not allowed, but still occurred. T.C. Williams High School was born. This movie is a true story and is clearly based around the football team at this new integrated school. At first, all of the players both black and white hate each other. Then they meet their coach. Coach Yoast was supposed to be the main coach for the team because he is supposed to be the best coach around, but he got replaced by a black coach to make things "fair". This did not make matters worse. Finally, the team bonded as one and the two main football players (Julius Campbell and Gary Bertier) become best friends. The coaches still butt heads but not because of their color, but because of their coaching methods. This team makes it all of the way to state, and they won, even though Gary Bertier got into a car accident and could not play. No one thought that an integrated team led by a black coach would make it that far.

This movie relates to what we talked about last week. Wright's stories were about segregation and racism toward black people and black people being put into their place. Several of the white characters tried to put the black football players into their place, but they did not succeed. Coach Boone (the black head coach) was threatened by several white city folk about how he should not be coaching because he is black and the black man can not succeed at something the white man is good at. The older white men even had a town meeting (of all older white men) about the coaching situation and Coach Yoast stood by coach Boone and the state's decision of having him coach. Coach Boone was even harassed at his house. He was called "Coach Coon" and got a brick thrown through his little girl's window in the middle of the night. These are all ways that the white man puts down the black man to "put him in his place". This is just like when Wright got beaten up by this co workers because he wanted to learn more. Wright was not in his fellow employee's' comfort zone, so that meant that they had to do something about it.

I love this movie. I own this movie, and I am so glad that I have it. To see a real life success story on the big screen is an awesome experience. If this was a made up story, I think it would still be a great feel good story, but the fact that it was a true story just adds to the greatness of this movie. To show the racist people in the town suddenly change their views because their team is winning in football shows how Americans set their priorities. Black people are suddenly okay if they can help us win the state title. If you have not watched this movie I encourage everyone to at least watch it once, even if you do not like football. There is more of a story there than just a football game.

I found this picture at http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=remember+the+titans&gbv=2)

Media 1 week 5

"The Long Walk Home"

"The Long Walk Home" is about a black maid her white owner's wife and their friendship. Odessa the maid (Whoopie Goldberg) rode the bus to the Thompson's house every day to take care of the children and cook and clean the house. When the bus boycott led by Martin Luther King Jr. took place in their town of Montgomery, Alabama. Odessa refuses to ride the bus to and from the Thompson household because of the boycott, so she walks to work every morning and back home every night. Mrs. Miriam Thompson was informed by her husband that she was not to help Odessa get to or from work. After a while, Miriam decides to help Odessa anyway. Because of the help that these two women gave each other, they became friends in a time that did not allow them to be friends. When Miriam joins the boycott and starts driving black people around to their jobs with her husband's car, he was furious. This was the last straw for Miriam's husband. He then joins the Citizen's Council. This council is very much like the KKK. After he sees what the council did to his wife, he stands up for her. (The council cornered her, destroyed her car, and then started to hit her.)

This movie relates to what Wright wrote about. Wright had to learn his place in society and deal with it. He had to sneak around just to become a well learned person. This movie does have a lot of sneaking around, but Odessa's point is quite clear. She does not undermine the family that she works for even though she does not ride the bus. Zinn talked about the same thing in his chapter that we read. Zinn talked about how after the slaves were free, they still gave up things such as their right to vote in order to get a descent paying job from a rich white person. Unlike both of the chapters that we read last week, this story does have a happy ending. (Most movies do.) This movie also shows the same thing that Zinn's chapter did about some white people standing up for the less "privileged" races.

I loved this movie. It is a very touching story based around a true event that took place in the past of our country. I feel that Odessa was a very strong woman, and at the time she felt like she knew her place as a worker, but when it came to her being a citizen of the town and of the United States, she knew that she could protest by boycotting the busses. In the movie, it is so powerful to see the empty busses drive by. In the movie, Odessa's daughter tries to get on the bus to go somewhere, but some people stop her, and while some white boys were coming over to beat her up, her brother steps in front of her and takes the brunt of the beating. This is not a shock to me, but it still gets to me to see young children have that much hatred toward someone else of a different race. I recommend this movie to everyone.

(The picture was found at http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=the%20long%20walk%20home&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi)

Media 2 week 4

ARRESTING A 14 YEAR OLD BECAUSE SHE WANTED TO LEARN?!?

I found an online article based in Britain about a young girl arrested for racism. Codie Stott allegedly told her teacher in her science class a racist comment about her group that she was thrown into. Codie and her family were outraged. In the article, Codie tells the writer the real story that happened. Codie was out of school the day before the incident for a hospital appointment, so when she returned the next day she was behind in her school work. The science class had already started a project so Codie's teacher paired her up with 5 Asian pupils sitting at a table. Codie started to work with them and realized that only one of the five students could speak English. So when Codie had a question or wanted to give ideas, she had to tell the one student and then he/she had to tell the others. Codie could not understand them for they were speaking what she believed to be Urdu. Codie went to the teacher and asked if she could change groups because she could not understand the other students, but the teacher reacted by screaming at her and telling her she was racist. After Codie went outside to calm down, another teacher saw her, talked to her science teacher, then called the police officer that is stationed at the school every day. More than a week after the incident, Codie was arrested and was made to sit in a jail cell for three and a half hours. This young 14 year old girl now had a record, but was never charged. When she went back to school, she changed science classes, and is looked upon as an example to what could happen to you if you say something racist.

This article does not follow any specific thing that we have talked about, but I found it very interesting and very controversial. This article does have to do with racism and what is and isn't considered racism. Is refusing to work with someone because they don't speak your language racism? Before racism, there was only the difference between Christians and heathens. This then changed to the difference between whites and blacks. Is refusing to work with someone because they speak Urdu the next step to racism?

I feel that this is not racist at all. Codie just wanted to be able to do her work well. Since when was it okay to turn a student into a tutor unwillingly? I believe that if anyone else was in that kind of frustrating situation, we would all do the same thing too. The fact that the adults in Britain are taking this crack down on racism to the extremes, does not mean that they need to take it out on a child. The fact that the police and the teachers used her as an example is terrible. She did nothing wrong by wanting to further her education rather than hinder it and get a bad grade on her project. This over extreme form of anti-racism has got to stop as soon as possible.

(This information and the picture were found at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-410150/Schoolgirl-arrested-refusing-study-non-English-pupils.html)

Media 1 week 4

Summary and Analysis on American History X

American History X is a movie based on white supremacists and racism of all extremes. The main character Derek became a white supremacist after his father was killed by a black drug dealer while the father was fighting a fire. Derek led several other white suburban youth, including his younger brother, to fight for their cause. Then one night, Derek made a mistake. He killed a black man and was sent to prison. Since his younger brother was the only one to see it, he did not confess in court, so his brother did not get charged with murder. While in prison, Derek becomes a new man. He starts working in the laundry section with a black man who turns out to be a great guy. The only reason Derek Survived prison was because of this one black guy that he worked with. When Derek left prison, he was a changed man. However, none of the other supremacists changed their ways while Derek was gone. When Derek returned home he found his younger brother involved with the white supremacists and freaked out in front of all of the other white supremacists making him an outcast with them as well. He told his brother later about what happened in prison and both of them decided to no longer be supremacists but to start to live their lives for their family.In the end, Derek's younger brother ends up getting shot by a black boy in the high school boys bathroom because they felt threatened by Derek's brother earlier in the movie.

This movie reminds me of what we learned last week. The movie Race:The Power of an Illusion, talked about how racism got started by rich white men to make the black servants and slaves feel threatened by everyone else. In American History X, the group of the white supremacists are doing the same thing. They are making every other race feel threatened by them. The difference between the two movies is in American History X, the black people fought back. In Race: The Power of an Illusion, the black people had no way of fighting back other than trying to run away. Another similarity between the movies is that the black race got punished more severely than the whites for their crimes. In American History X, Derek killed someone and had a shorter prison sentence than a guy who stole a television and dropped it on a police officer's foot (which the white police officer charged as assault against an officer). In Race: The Power of an Illusion, the black slaves that ran away got a worse punishment than the white servants that ran away.

I loved this movie. I felt that it was interesting to see the way that a white supremacist thinks and the way that they act. I was shocked because I have never seen or heard anything about how they do act, so this was an intense movie for me to watch. I was glad that Derek changed his ways and learned to accept people for who they are, but it was sad that his revelation was too late to save his own brother. I feel like this is a real thinking movie. It makes you think about racism and makes you realize how corrupted the United States is and can be if you let racist people run the country, or even just a suburb. I recommend the class to see this movie to really think about racism and how it is still very much alive today in our society.

(The picture that I used is found at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120586/mediaindex)

(The movie was watched on television on the FX channel.)

Media 2 Week 3

Sibani Roy: Trouble Maker or Saint?

The media that I chose was from the ethnic news watch website in the News India Times. The article is called Meditation against racism.

An Indian-born meditation teacher, Sibani Roy, fights racism in Great Britain. She said that the "British National Party (BNP) has learnt the hard way." Roy runs a holistic healthcare center in Bay of Colwyn. This is where she can educate people about meditatio for their well-being, and can also mare people more aware of how to live well. Being a popular person, Roy got elected to be a member of the town council. That is when the war between the extreme right BNPs and herself began. Her campaign to stop the extreme right wing racists caught public attention and soon enough, they resigned from the party and remained independent councillors. The community is doing everything that they can in order to keep their politics anti-racism now.

This article relates to our class because it is talking about racism (which is something we do quite frequently) and it talks about the privileged. The privileged would be the BNP but Roy conquered the privileged to make herself be more privileged than them.

I am proud of Roy and wish that I had heard this sooner. It is good to see that people are still fighting everything from just slight racism to extreme racism. I feel that this is a big uplifter to me and to others who have heard this story. I actually kind of wish that I could have been involved. I feel a little bit jealous. I would love to be involved in something controversial or an uprising against the more privileged. Things like that happened in my parents and my grandparents generation. I just wish that I could participate more in the equality of people.



The website for the information is at (https://elearning.bgsu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=%2Fbin%2Fcommon%2Fcourse.pl%3Fcourse_id%3D_134504_1)
The website for the picture is at (http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northwest/sites/colwyn/images/hindubride135.jpg)

Media 1 week 3

Young African Americans Drinking All the Time??

I found an article online discussing the stereotype that African American youth drink alcohol more than Caucasian youth. This however might not be true.





The research was done by Dr. Epstein and Dr. Botvin. They took surveys of 2,000 (mostly African American) teenagers from 13 inner-city junior high schools in Hew York City over the course of three years. What they found was that seventh graders are better able to be aware of the advertising on the radios and television but are more resistant than the ninth graders to drink alcohol. This means that the stereotype of African Americans learning how to drink young and always drinking in the future, does not seem to be correct.





I feel that this is a good thing. This just shows that stereotypes are not always correct. This resorts back to last week's question about the Cleveland Indians. That was discussing stereotypes of Native Americans. This does not always mean that every native American is a savage and the article that I found does not always mean that African Americans are drunk deadbeats either. The advertisements make African Americans seem like they drink a lot. If you look at the Boone's Farm picture (above left), you will see two black shadows. This to me does not seem like it is a white girl and a white guy dancing. They are appealing to the African American race. They are trying to make it seem like drinking is a blast and you can dance the night away if you want to by drinking our product. This is just making people think that they can do whatever they please while drinking, and it also encourages younger people to drink like the students at the inner city New York Schools.





I was glad that I stumbled across this website because I feel like I needed to share that with whoever reads my post. (Right now it is just Melissa, but when class is done I am going to make my website public so others can read and leave comments.) African Americans get a bad break on things such as alcohol abuse and etc. I think it is time that other people know the truth. It is not the African Americans themselves making it seem like they are all alcoholics, but the media that makes it seem that way by making commercials or other advertisements focus on a certain race.





the website that I got my facts from was (http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/99260.php)


The website that I found the picture at is (http://www.wearyourbeer.com/images/Boone_Farm_Fever_Black_Babydoll2.jpg)

Media week 2 post 2

THE CROWS in DUMBO... RACIST OR NOT

While surfing through the internet, I found a website devoted to Disney and their racist characters in movies. The website that I found had the top nine racist characters, so I am going to write about number seven, the crows in the movie Dumbo.

The crows (black birds) are playing into the stereotypical African American. Dumbo was made in 1941 (according to the website), which was a prime time for racism in movies. The crows had no jobs. They were depicted as "poor and uneducated". The crows also smoked and the main crow was dressed the way that a pimp would be dressed. To top it off, the lead crow's name was Jim Crow. The way that the crows sing to Dumbo the elephant is reminiscent of a black choir. They are preaching to Dumbo how he can fly, because the crows are "experts at everything 'fly'".

This movie is very true to the time that it was made. A lot of white people gave African Americans this stereotype, so it was expected to see this in a movie. This relates to what we are talking about in class, because it deals with racism of the past, and the stereotypes that Disney likes to subliminally pass to the viewer. Last week we watched a clip from another Disney movie, Peter Pan. During this clip, we witnessed the same stereotypes and racism used in Dumbo, but they were aimed at the Native Americans. I understand that extreme racism was an issue at the time these movies were made, but it is amazing to me that racist stereotypes were used in children's movies.

I love Disney movies, but I have also never thought about all of the racist things that were placed in these movies. While looking at the website, I was not too shocked to realize that there were so many though. The time that a lot of classic Disney movies were made was between the 40s and the 60s. However, there were some Disney movies and television shows that showed stereotypes in the 80s and the early 90s. How could this pass by children watching the movies? I do not know, but maybe they are too focused on the plot line. Finding this article has lessened the love that I have for Disney, but just because there are racist parts in some of the classic movies, that does not mean that I will stop watching them. They are a part of our past, and we can not change the past. We must embrace it.

(The website that was used was http://www.cracked.com/article_15677_9-most-racist-disney-characters.html)

Media week 2

While looking for comics to write about, I came upon a website that talked about a little bit of their history. There was controversy throughout comic books, but that is not what I am writing about today. Today I am going to discuss the appearance of African American characters in comic books. While looking through some old comic book covers, I noticed that all of the early comic book heroes were white. According to www.wired.com, the earliest that African Americans appeared in comics was before WWII. However, this does not mean that they were heroes. African Americans and other minorities were usually just side characters that really had no importance. During WWII, all minorities in comics seemed to disapear. Finally, in the 1960s and 1970s, African American figures came back to comics, but this time they were not seen as side characters, they were placed as main characters.

This information relates to our class work due to the fact that we discussed race during the first week of class. In the movie that we watched on race, they had proven the fact that there is no difference between minorities and whites (when it comes to our mitochondrial DNA). They also talked about the social side of racism, and that is what we have learned compares to the history of comic books. This proves that socially as soon as African Americans became legally equals to whites, that they were no longer looked down upon or made fun of due to the nature of the comic. Now, African Americans are superheroes in several comics.

I found it very interesting to read about the history of African Americans in comic books. I felt very disappointed that it took that long for a black super hero to imerge. However, I am glad that they did, or else characters like Storm from The X-Men would not have been a really memorable and powerful character. Without the changes that our country has made, even when it comes to just comic books, African Americans and other minorities are now justfully represented.

(The following information has been found at http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2003/07/59683)
(The picture has been found at http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/376/)