Reading & Writing for Social Justice

1. The article, “Rudy Giuliani Uses Ferguson to Take his Race Baiting to a Whole New Level” by Dylan Scott is all about the unjust events of racial crimes. The former mayor of NYC, Giuliani, has recently made some horrible statements about racial stereotypes. These statements include, biased opinions on recent shootings, In accurate statements, and twisting the law. When I read and researched this issue I found it insane how someone could be so heartless towards these serious problems. These comments were extremely unjust because there is a big issue of white cops killing innocent black people because stereotypes have gotten out-of-hand. As outrageous as these acts of violence are, Giuliani decides to defend the cops by accusing the black folk as acting suspicious and whatnot. On of Giuliani’s comments towards this issue took the side of accusing black people for being “too violent with one another”. This makes me think about how horrible of these recent shootings have been, not that shootings aren’t horrible, but these especially take the prize currently. Now to make matters even worse, there have been way cops shooting innocent black girls and boys. What if the boys are girls for white? Would the shootings still be as common? I think not.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/rudy-giuliani-ferguson-michael-brown-shooting

2. Some things I noticed in my neighborhood that are unfair to my and others’ human rights were;

• Police Brutality
• Racial Discrimination
• Homelessness
• Minimum Wages
• Sexism

The amount of homelessness it's a constant problem everywhere. It may seem that New York is the only place with homeless people, but that's just a small taste of how the world really lives. There are tens of thousands of people without homes in just NYC alone. Even with this ridiculous amount of homeless people, no one really seems to do anything about it. Sure there are homeless shelters and soup kitchens, but these are tiny tasks that attempt to fix this gigantic problem. These acts are not nearly enough for this many people. These “less fortunate” people are usually look down upon as dirty, no good, people. Honestly, this is extremely selfish of us to do. We make them these less fortunate crooks that we despise. No one takes the time and effort to help out these people. We basically make them the way they are by not helping them. To make matters even worse, we don't like them, even though we caused the problem in the first place by not lending a helping hand.

3. I interviewed my father. I chose him because he is the editor of the daily news paper and I felt he would have a lot of opinions on these current issues. His response was “I believe that our world is unfair when it comes to income inequality.Some people are very rich and others are very poor. But on the bright side something that is good about the human species is that we are getting more and more intelligence by the second and we keep inventing helpful technology every day.”

I agree with my dad on his opinions on these topics. Income inequality, is in fact a very large issue in the world.  But I must point out that income inequality has been around since the beginning of time. There will always be people more wealthy people less wealthy. I believe that  it is an unsolvable issue. I was pretty surprised that my father chose income inequality over all of the other flaws we face. there are so many more problems that are more deadly and unjust than income inequality. On the other hand, I absolutely agree with the fact that the human species is developing and becoming more advanced every day. Without some of the modern technology we have created, who knows what would've happened to our species by now. We are making new medicine and developing cleaner ways to travel every day. These things are extremely important to the lifestyle humans are living.

4. I choose the verse from the song Roadblock by Attaboy. The verse is;

One more detour now

One roadblock

Until the road looks clear

So let’s make the most of it

While it’s still in the palm of our hands, my dear

Hurricanes can’t be seen where the airplanes fly

So c’mon baby let’s fly

I think that this song is obviously not about a road trip, but has a much deeper and more involved meaning. I believe that the artist uses the symbol of traveling and being prevented from moving forward in their trip to display what they are going through. The line about detours and roadblocks contribute to the message of being trapped or stuck somewhere. The writers took a common object and gave it more meaning that it usually has. The method of including symbolism is used a lot when it comes to songs and poems. By using symbolism, the author creates a whole new style of explaining to the reader/listener what they are telling through their piece of writing. This writer tells the listener that she is stuck somewhere and she wants to make the most of the situation while it lasts. This is told through specific objects and it opens up the listeners imagination to a hidden message. Writers can take a simple massage and hide it in everyday objects instead of just putting it out there for everyone to see. Authors involve totally unrelated ideas to make their own more exciting to find.   

5. Someone that changes the world every day and a small way is my mother. My mother is a social worker. She helped elderly men and women fight against poverty and homelessness. Without my mother's aid, all of these helpless people would be living in horrible conditions. My mother change the world by helping those in need. She provides her service to these people that are much less fortunate than most other people. This is why I chose my mother for this specific assignment. Her profession is such a beautiful contribution to society. Without the profession of social work, these elderly people will be homeless and living a disgusting and heartbreaking   lifestyle.

When I asked my mother why she chose the field of social work, she responded with,“ I've always been motivated by injustice and because I appreciate all the things I've been lucky enough to have in my life I like to work to help others who haven't been so lucky.”

6. There is a news segment on the tradition of Black Friday, and the dangers at shopping at these stores. These stores like Target and Walmart don’t protect their customer's personal information as well as one would think. There have been a new record set this year of illegal break-ins into companies security information. During the report, a reporter interviewed Dave Dewalt, the CEO of FireEye, a company that protects the security of stores. Dewalt makes his money by convincing vulnerable stores that don’t want bad reviews. All Dewalt does is create a complicated code around the company’s information. Unfortunately, recently hackers have become so smart, that even they can crack these crazy codes. If I was in the shoes of Dave Dewalt right now, I would be extremely nervous and embarrassed. I sold these people of my “unsolvable” coding protection, and then people still break into it. I just lost my entire career of what I thought I was good at, but there are people that were even better. These companies that thought I was helping them, probably think they got scammed or cheated by me , but honestly, I didn’t know these people were so good at what they do. I would be incredibly embarrassed that my whole profession just got horribly ruined by a criminal mastermind.   

7. I watched the movie Grease for my depiction of an older show. As I rewatched this movie with these questions in mind, I noticed how many more stereotypes were included into this film. Throughout the whole movie, there were too many stereotypes to count, and not one remotely accurate impression of a teenager. The representation of these average teenagers were extremely offensive and incorrect. All of the teenagers in the movie where rowdy, obnoxious, and short tempered. They always got what they wanted, and were feared by the " geeks and nerds". And of course, all of them were attractive, strong and very popular. But this all-time classic has more flaws than what meets the eye. Not only does the entire movie cast consist of white actors, but the only African-American seen in the entire movie is a janitor working at the school. Now, it was okay to have the stereotype teenagers in the movie but it is not okay to include racist ideas. The parents of these students are not included in this movie, but you are led to think that they are wealthy and let their kids do whatever they want, which is demonstrated very clearly in the film. As I watched this movie, I realized that the entire plot is based off of these rebellious teenagers doing cliché teenager stuff. The overall message that was displayed to me was that high school is full of clubs, gangs, and cliques. And high school is exactly like all of the stereotypes claim it’s like, oh, and don’t get beaten up on the first day of school.  I doubt this is the message that the writers wanted to send to its watchers.