They Say, Chapter Four, February 17-22
Read chapter Four "Yes/ No / Okay/, But" (55-67).
Exercise 1 Read one of the essays from 50 Essays referenced here, identify those places where the author agrees with others, disagrees, or both (67).
Exercise 2 (67).
Answer the questions at the end of the chapter for one of the essays. Post here as well.
Sarah Vowell's "Shooting Dad" (Cohen 412-419)
http://www.livingston.org/cms/lib4/NJ01000562/Centricity/Domain/732/shooting%20dad%20full%20text.pdf
Connections essay link: http://wiki-cik.wikispaces.com/file/view/Mukherjee-2WaysToBelong.pdf
Brent Staple's "Just Walk on By" (Cohen 383)
http://nicolejenkins.cmswiki.wikispaces.net/file/view/Just%20Walk%20on%20By.pdf
Add to this set of questions, the following: connections Compare Staples's reaction to race-infected encounters to James Baldwin's reaction to the encounter in the restaurant in "Notes of a Native Son"(linked here). What might the differences twll us abou the individuals and their perspective times?
http://english.duke.edu/uploads/media_items/baldwin-native-son.original.pdf
Exercise 1 Read one of the essays from 50 Essays referenced here, identify those places where the author agrees with others, disagrees, or both (67).
Exercise 2 (67).
Answer the questions at the end of the chapter for one of the essays. Post here as well.
Sarah Vowell's "Shooting Dad" (Cohen 412-419)
http://www.livingston.org/cms/lib4/NJ01000562/Centricity/Domain/732/shooting%20dad%20full%20text.pdf
Connections essay link: http://wiki-cik.wikispaces.com/file/view/Mukherjee-2WaysToBelong.pdf
Brent Staple's "Just Walk on By" (Cohen 383)
http://nicolejenkins.cmswiki.wikispaces.net/file/view/Just%20Walk%20on%20By.pdf
Add to this set of questions, the following: connections Compare Staples's reaction to race-infected encounters to James Baldwin's reaction to the encounter in the restaurant in "Notes of a Native Son"(linked here). What might the differences twll us abou the individuals and their perspective times?
http://english.duke.edu/uploads/media_items/baldwin-native-son.original.pdf
posted by Professor Wanda's Posse at 9:28 PM
9 Comments:
Yessica Beltran
Professor Wanda Sabir
English 1A
18 February 2014
“They Say” Chapter 4 Exercises
1. In the essay “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space” by Brent Staples, he talks about the way he is percieved by others for being a black man. He explains how over the years he has been mistaken for a burglar or someone who could be possibly dangerous, particularly by women. In the middle of his essay he agrees with the apprehension these women show when they see him walking late at night. He syas that he nderstands the way they feel because women are a lot of times the victims of street violence. He says that unfortunately a lot of this violence is commited by young black males.
2. In the essay “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space” by Brent Staples, he talks about the way he is percieved by others for being a black man. He explains how over the years he has been mistaken for a burglar or someone who could be possibly dangerous, particularly by women. Staples agrees when he writes, “Women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence.” In other words, he understands why women are so wary when out by themselves and towards black males in particular. Staples is surely right about women often being the victims of violence because they are often viewed as defenseless. Staples laments that their cautiousness leads them to believe that allblack males are possibly dangerous.
Yessica Beltran
Professor Wanda Sabir
English 1A
18 february 2014
“50 Essays” Response Questions
1. In his essay “Just Walk on By” Staples describes himself as being shy. He says that because he grew up watching young people fight and commit crimes, he unconsciously chose to keep a low profile. Staples is a black man and because many black males are involved in street crime that affects him. people who see him walking late at night assume he is up to no good and could be dangerous.
2. In the last sentence of his essay Staples says that when he walks late at night he ususally whistles classical music outloud. He compares it to a hiker wearing a cowbell when he is in bear territory. This expresses the complication Staples disscused in his essay. He whistles out loud so that anyone walking towards him knows that he is there and is not surprised or scared when they see him. He is not trying to hide from them. Just like a hiker makes noise so that bears know they are around.
3. In James Baldwin’s essay “ Notes of a Native Son”, he describes an event when he was discriminated against and he got so angry he threw a mug of water at a woman. Baldwin was frustrated and angry. His reaction is very different to that of Staples. Staples knows that people will have preconceived notions of him, so he simply accepts that fact. Baldwin, who was lviing in a different time, couldn’t really understand why he was treated so differently. It was a segregated time he lived in.
4. I identify with the young woman at the beginning of Staples’s story. As a young woman you hear these stories of other girls being vicitims of theft and rape and it causes you to be wary. I also sympathize with Staples though, because these assumptions that we have are often wrong and unfair to those we are judging.
Athena Knowles
Professor Sabir
English 1A Saturday
19 February 2014
Shooting Dad Response pgs 412-419
1. The first amendment is freedom of speech, religion, press assembly and petition. The second amendment is the right to bear arms. Sarah's father likes the second amendment because he's a gun smith and loves guns. I imagine Sarah likes the first amendment because it speaks to personal freedoms and freedom of speech, which is important if your a writer/story teller.
2. Sarah's writing style is great. She has chosen specific moments of her life and elaborated on them using interesting details and humor. Like I stated in question four, keeping the reader interested has a lot to do with the way you present what you're writing about. Some one could tell the same story about her dad running outside and shooting at crows but make it totally boring by simply stating what happened and not adding silly details.
3. In Bharati's story “Two Way To Live In America” her and her sister Mira see the world much differently, almost the complete opposite in fact. Bharati gives up her traditional heritage and marries outside the appropriate community. Mira on the other hand keeps to tradition. Despite their differences the two are still loving sisters. Sarah and her father went through periods of time when they did not get along because of their different political views but as they both grew it became less of an issue and more of a joke. Because both these stories are dealing with disagreement within families it can be seen in both that it is possible to still love someone in your family even if you do not agree with them.
4. Honestly I did not laugh when I read this story. I think it's well written don't get me wrong, but personally I don't find it very funny. However, I think the key to making things funny is all in the delivery, and how it's presented, whether it's joke, silly story or comedy sketch.
Dorothy Middleton
Professor Wanda Sabir
English 1A Saturday
16 February 2014
Sherman Alexie
1) What is Superman doing in the comic book panel Alexie remembers?
Superman is breaking down a brown door in the comic book panel
2) Why is it important to remember this detail at the very end of the essay?
It was preceded by Alexie that the door in the comic book panel represented the barriers he faced as an American `Indian in a country that saw no value in him or his people. At the school he saw children working hard, but he also saw children who were disengaged with no desire to do anything to improve their lives. He believes that if those children would put more effort into learning, they could break down the barriers that the door represented. He felt that the key to breaking down some of the barriers was to become literate. He saw the children as Supermen, capable of breaking down some of those barriers and that action could save their lives
3) The verb that was found in paragraph 7 fourteen times was the verb, read. I believe the verb read, was used fourteen times to show the hard work that one must put in order to become literate. I also think he used the verb fourteen times not only to show is it hard work to become literate but also to show that becoming literate is a process that must be repeated over and over.
4) Connections
I don’t think Alexie envied his classmates at all. Unlike Douglass who felt that his peers were better off than he was because they didn’t have the pressure that came with learning to read and understanding their plight. It is my belief Alexie saw himself on a higher level than his classmate. He viewed them as failures and non factors when it came to the world they lived in. Although Alexie saw himself as smart and arrogant he also knew that he was not yet a Superman. He fully understood that his circumstance didn’t make him less than the world around him. He knew learning to read was just one of the key. He really believed that if you work hard, believe in yourself, you could become a Superman and no doors would be left standing.
Rashell Baldry
Professor Wanda Sabir
English 1A Saturday
20th February 2014
They Say Exercises (67)
1. Brent Staples does a great job at recognising that his late walks at night sometimes scare pedestrians, especially women. I think he disagrees with the fact that he is not a scary person, but he acknowledges that women are often victims of street violence. I think he agrees and disagrees on a very understandable level.
2. Brent Staples “Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space” summarizes how he has been seen as a scary or threatening person on his late night walks, specifically women. In the beginning he talks about his “first victim”, although he did nothing to this woman, he considers her a victim because of how scared she was when she ran away from him. Staples said, “Her flight made me feel like an accomplice in tyranny.” I agree with most of what Staples believes in in this essay. As a woman who lives in a violent city, I am not scared of anyone because of their skin color, “young black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence”, Staples states. I completely agree with that, unfortunately women are victims of street violence, so is everyone. I believe you have to try and be as aware of your surroundings as possible, and whether someone is white, black, asian, male, female, you could be attacked. I also believe the more afraid you look, the larger the risk of being a victim to street violence. At the end of staples essay when he actually decides to change his actions and clothing on his night walks is really huge of him. Staples could have gone on living the way he was, but he didn’t want people to be afraid of him anymore. Nobody wants to scare anyone without the intent to do so, so he changed that.
Rashell Baldry
Professor Wanda Sabir
English 1A Saturday
20 February 2014
50 Essays Brent Staples
1. How does Staples describe himself? How is he sometimes seen to others?
Staples describes himself as a “softy” someone who couldn't hurt a fly, though others see him on his night walks as a scary man.
2. Staple ends his essay with, “It is my equivalent of the cowbell that hikers wear when they know they are in bear country.” This is a great quote because he is for one, he is trying to accept that people may be scared of him but at least he can let them know he is there due to his whistling of classical music. Two I feel as though he is comparing himself to a scary bear, which, he is not, and its sad that one has to think of themselves as a scary person. To me he is trying his hardest to make others comfortable, and to make him more comfortable with himself knowing he is not frightening anyone.
3. The only connection between Staples and Baldwin in my eyes is that they are both black males wrongly perceived. Staples wasn’t violent, and didn’t want to be. Staples recognized that people were afraid of him on his night walks, and did what he could to try and fix that. I don’t think Baldwin was necessarily violent, but outraged and angry, as anyone should have been in his situation. Baldwin may have taken it too far, but he was trying to get some sort of point across, even though he states he didn’t have a “plan”. I think Baldwin almost gave the white people what they wanted, by being violent with throwing the mug, because they probably left gossiping about Baldwin and not accepting him.
4. I guess I would relate to his “first victim” not because I am afraid of black males at night, but because I am a young white woman in my twenties. I have definitely been scared or followed by someone, late at night. I have lived near Hunters Point in San Francisco, and East Oakland for the last 3 years, and as much as I love the wonderful city of Oakland, unfortunately there's a boatload of violence here… You have to watch your back. One thing I don’t relate to with the “victim” is that she shows her fear, that is a red flag for an attacker, or predator. I relate to Staples because I am very against racial profiling and racism in general, so I sympathise for Staples the whole time, though women are victims of street violence, Staples is a victim of the wrongly accused.
Mark Lopez
Professor Sabir
English 1A Saturday
21 February 2014
They Say Exercises 1-2(p.67)
They Say/I Say
Exercise 1
In Sarah Vowell's essay "Shooting Dad", Sarah describes her father and she being polar opposites. She starts off by describing that her house is divided into different parties. Upstairs hung a democratic sign on the window, and downstairs hung republican. She states in an unsubtle way her opposition towards guns. The next paragraph she immediately turns away and tells us the one thing she and her father do agree on, the Constitution. She then immediately tells us how much she leans onto the first amendment, while her father clings to the second.I few other paragraphs in, she describes her dad's profession as 'horrifying' and 'weird'. She also firmly states her father's stand, and her own stand. Vowell explains how she and her father's territories were extremely different, once again pointing out an unsubtle hint of her dislike in guns. Nearing the end of her essay she hangs out with her dad and shoots a canon that he made himself; Sarah basks in the delight of firing the canon which is another thing she and her father agree on.
They Say/I Say
Exercise 2
In Sarah Vowell's essay "Shooting Dad", Sarah makes it loud and clear on the first paragraph that she shows no interest in guns like her father. She reaffirms this by stating:
"I'm not saying who was the Democrat or who was the Republican--my father or I--but I will tell you that I have never subscribed to 'Guns & Ammo', that I did not plaster the family vehicle with National Rifle Association stickers, and that hunter's orange was never my color."
Obviously she makes a claim of how uninteresting she finds guns by giving us a sort of comedic view on it. Those who find guns fascinating as much as Sarah's Father are indeed entitled to their own interests, however I must agree on how uninteresting guns are along with Sarah. As uninteresting as guns are to Sarah, I also find them rather commonplace. Guns have become apparent in so many movies and video games; I see them holstered on the belts of police officers, both in the real world and Law & Order or CSI: Miami. Not only do I agree about how uninteresting they are, but I see it as if it's become a common American household item, like forks and spoons.
Mark Lopez
Professor Sabir
English 1A Saturday
21 February 2014
50 Essays Response
#1
The 1st Amendment states the right to freedom of speech, religion, assembly and petition. The 2nd Amendment protects individuals rights to bear arms. It makes sense for the first one to be Sarah's favorite because of how well voiced she is in her opposition towards her father being a gunsmith which is basically favoritism of the 2nd amendment.
#2
Vowell truly is a master story teller. When she describes the first time she held and shot a gun, she fills it with such emotion and sympathy for when she was that little girl. She kept me interested by giving us a personified analogy about the gun being a 'bully'. The fact that she was a little girl telling this story kept me focused on the origin of how she grew to dislike guns.
#3
In Mukherjee's disagreement, she argues with her sister over their views on immigration and cultural ancestry. Sarah Vowell's disagreement with her father also involves goverment law and her own personal views of it. In the end of both essays, they ultimately have a realization of their disagreements. Even though they argue with family over such disagreements, they can put themselves in their shoes and try to see it from their eyes. They found solace in disagreeing because of their family ties.
#4
The 1st thing i found funny was her uninterested and nonchalant view of her dad's "Guns and Ammo magazine collection" and the "rifle association stickers" and how "hunter's orange is not [her] color". The 2nd moment was when she had to move the guns out of the way on their dinner table to eat her rice krispies. The 3rd moment was when her dad was comparing shooting as an American past time to baseball and apple pie. (She preferred baseball and apple pie) the 4th moment I found very laughable was when she told us about the 'gravity surge' in her kitchen, when the picture of a democrat on the fridge suddenly ended up in the trash can. The 5th and most hilarious moment I found was her last 2 sentence in the paragraph where she was describing shooting a gun for the first time as a little girl; "I believed in the devil, I did what my mother told me to do every time I felt an evil presence. I looked at the smoke and whispered under my breath, "Satan, I rebuke thee."
I think what makes these specific moments so funny is how seemingly relatable they all are. From the rice krispies, to something like rebuking the devil, all some kind of seriousness and plain ordinary things turned into some laughable quotes in the right context.
Dorothy Middleton
Professor Wanda Sabir
English 1 a Saturday
17 February 2014
Brent Staples
1) Staples saw himself as a softy, someone that was afraid of cutting up a raw chicken; let along cut someone neck with a knife. He also proclaimed himself as an avid night walker.
Staples was not seen as an old softy by anyone but himself. Others mostly white women say him as a potential mugger, rapist or even a killer.
2) I don’t get it. I wonder how he came up with whistling classical music and equating it to a hiker wearing a cow bell in bear country. I feel that it won’t matter that he is whistling classical music or even whistling Dixie, he is the bear, he is the one the hunter wants to take down. Like the bear, he is seen as a big brut, a killer, something to be feared. I don’t think that he has taken into account that a preconceived notion of being a bear was riding on his coat tail and around the corner waiting for him to give out a whistle was a hunter; ready to load his gun with a bullet that has the words “stand your ground” on it. The way I see it, the hiker was in a much better position; he was not seen as a threat, they view him as an innocent, one with no preconceived notion hanging around his neck. I think that Staples fail to understand that the media has sent out a call letting the public know that it is bear season and the season lasts all year long. That call warns the public to be caution and on the lookout for those deadly bears walking the streets of their city. There have been many cases were black men have been shot just for being out in the public. Many people believed that was the case with Travon Martin. I believe that he was seen as a young bear who had wander from the woods.
In the book “Stupid White Men” author Michael Moore points out that even when whites have no contact with blacks they have a built in fear. He states that the news media is one of the main reasons why so many whites feel that way. It is his opinion that they are being feed information about black men that builds negative stereotypes. He also states that many time the information given out about black men in the news is either wrong or asteriated to make it seem that black men are a threat to this sociality. He farther points out in his book, that he lives in a white community and might see a black person there maybe once in a 6 month period. He goes on to say that whites in that community have express a great fear of being mugged or even killed by a black man. The way he sees it and I agree with his concluding, that based on sheer numbers; there is a greater chance that if they were killed in their community, it would be by a white man.
3 Connection
If you look at both situations, Staples and Baldwin, you might think that the story was the same, two black men who have been singled out because of their race. Baldwin was not served at a place that only served whites. He lashes out and is angry about being excluded. . He was told that they don’t serve “Negros” in that place. The white server then; as he saw it, was the main reason he was not being treated equally. The way he saw her was similar to Fredrick Douglass’s female master and how he viewed her. Both females; were bound by the rules of racism. They chose to honor that system; thereby leaving both, Baldwin and Douglass feeling detach. Baldwin and Douglass were victims of direct racism. They saw it, they felt it. Staples, on the other hand, is a victim of indirect racism. He didn’t see some of the effects of the racism of days gone by; he was allowed to eat and go to schools where whites dominated the environment. I feel he had the behavior and attitude of a person who just wanted to whistles his way down the path just so he could get along.
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