Presidential Race(ism)

Race has played a large role in the election so far but a new story has caught my eye. This picture has been a very popular discussion topic recently. This picture is of Obama in a traditional kenyan outfit during a visit to Kenya. The picture has been all over the news and the Clinton campaign has been accused of publisizing it. While watching the morning news on CNN they were talking about the photo and one of the newspeople said he was wearing some type of muslim religious turban. This is an example of how people generalize people. the person on CNN knew muslims wear turbans but didnt know other cultures wear turbans. It was just an ignorant comment that was not well thought out. Barack has been critisized before because of his heritige and even childish things like the fact that his name rymes with osama. I just think it is rediculus how people can make such general statements. One reason why i like Obama so much is because he ignores things like this. Obama is not just running on his race, he is running on his political veiws.

Censorship

Today in class we watched a movie about the controversial part The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn plays in schools and libraries all over the country throughout many time periods. Many people in the documentary were upset that the book was mandatory reading in school. They were upset because the book uses the word "nigger" many times throughout the book. People in the documentary were claiming that Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain was a racist because of his excessive use of the word. I feel that even though the people believe that Twain was a racist they should still read the book so they can interpret for themselves. The people protesting the use of the book in schools claimed that it was degrading to have to read about their people's past. I have not yet read the entire book so I cannot make my own opinions but from what other people have said in the documentary Twain was not a racist. In fact he was using the questionable language and portraying the black people the way he did to make a point. Another belief that I have is this, a word is a word. In the case of This book the word is nigger. This word holds a VERY strong negative connotation and can hurt many people. However, the only way to get rid of the negative connotation is for people to be exposed to it so they become immune to it. For example, when I was younger I used to gasp every time I would hear someone say "damn" I would react this way because first, I was taught it was a bad word and second because I hadn't been exposed to it. Now that I have been exposed to the word a lot it no longer upsets me. All in all I am very exited to read this book.

Ending the war

Recently a huge anti-war group stopped trying to cut funding for the war because they are now aware we are too far into the war to pull out now. Instead the groups are trying to prevent Bush from making a long lasting agreement with Iraq which may mean we will have troops in Iraq for many years. I think this is a really great thing that these groups are doing. The groups were not being very succesful in blocking funding for the war so they decided to try stopping Bush from doing another terrible thing. The groups are still fighting the funding of the war which is great because the US is spending eight to ten billion dollars a month. Imaging what our country could do with that extra money!

The News?

early this morning i was eating breakfast while watching NBC 5. I was expecting to learn about important events going on in the world and my country. Rather than the news focusing on current wars or the election, the main focus was Brittany spears. This is an example of what the popular demand is in news. people would rather learn about a celebrity's life than polotics, wars and the safety and well being of our nation. Many news channels are similar to the one i saw this morning. Many news shows focus on fun stories and show things people want to see rather than showing the real important things. A nother thing news shows often do is when they leave you hanging in suspense rather than giving you the story straight foreward. For example, when a commercial will come on at 5:00 and say "Is the water your drinking deadly?" find out at
9:00. This may be the way news stations make money but it is a very poor way to tell the news. I wish there was a station on TV that gave the straightforeward trustworthy news.

(New Trier) Tokenism

"In service to the democratic ideals of justice and equity, New Trier Township High School District 203 is committed to delivering a progressive educational and work environment for all students and staff in the areas of diversity and social justice. We believe it is the responsibility of academic institutions to offer students a diverse set of experiences and perspectives that will better prepare them to successfully navigate the rapidly globalizing world community of the 21st Century. To reflect more holistic and realistic perspectives of the world at large, we are committed to actively recruiting, supporting and retaining people of diverse backgrounds across each level of our school district. Providing a diverse experience for our school community is further evidence of our dedication to our motto, “to commit minds to inquiry, hearts to compassion and lives to the service of humanity.”"®
This is the New Trier Diversity statement easily found on the New Trier website under quick links. This statements was written in 2004 by the Board of education in attempt to increase employee diversity at New Trier. I wasnt at New Trier in 2004 so i dont know what the employee diversity was like then but i do know that there is not much diversity now. I believe that many of the minority faculty at new trier are examples of tokenism. For example, there are quite a few black parapros, but very few black teachers or higher positions at New Trier. I belive there are so many black parapros is so the school can say "hey we have a diverse faculty, look at our parapros." I also belive the entire diversity statement was made so New Trier can claim they are doing something about the lack of diversity at the school.

American History X

Today i was flipping through the channels on television when i came across the movie "American History X." I remebered seeing the movie a couple years ago and remembered it was a great movie so i decided to catch the rest of it. The movie was about half way through. For people who have not seen the movie the story goes like this. A young, white, American man (Derek) gets involved in a neo-nazi movement. Derek also brings his younger brother (still in highschool) into the group. Derek ends up in prison. While in jail Derek becomes friends with a black man who gives him some good advice and begins to turn Derek's veiws. He stops hanging out with the other skinheads in the jail. Because he doesnt sit with the skinheads in the lunch room they get angry and jump him. This is a major turning point for Derek because he knows he doesnt want to live the life of a neo-nazi any more. He soon gets out of prison and goes home to share his aquired knowledge to his brother. They go through a dramatic scene tearing down all the swastikas and nazi posters off the wall in their room. I wont give away the ending for anybody who hasnt seen the film but it is very powerful.
While watchin this movie i thought a lot about Mr. Oconnor's chart of fortune and misfortune. The main character begins up in the fortune portion of the chart. Some events happen that lead to him becoming a nazi, this is where the chart falls quickly and Derek ends up in jail. The interesting part about this movie is right when the chart is going up fast, right before the story is over there is a huge fall on the chart. The drastic fall at the end of the story is not what people are used to seeing in movies or other stories but it creates a very powerful message. A message i am still trying to figure out.

Childhood obesity

Childhood obesity has been an increasing problem in America. About thirteen percent of children are obese and one of the main reasons behind this is due to the sedentary lifestyles of many children. Rather than going out and playing sports, many children just sit at home and play sports on videogames or watch sports games on television. The technology age allows people to do everything imaginable on their home computer such as shopping, entertainment, and even working while people used to have to leave their house for these things.
Another main reason for obesity in America is the way we eat. Americans always believed bigger is better and food is no exeption. Food portion sizes have dramatically increased in the last couple decades. The convenience and low price of fast food encourages people to eat out rather than eating healthy often more expensive food.
Obesity related illnesses have also increased rapidly recently. "Diabetes diagnoses nearly doubled, accounting for 2.36 percent of child hospitalizations in the late '90s vs. 1.43 percent in the late '70s." (www.cbsnews.com) Diabetes is one of the main diseases that is caused by poor diet and lack of exersise and has increased rapidly in children since the 70's.
A sedentary lifestyle and poor diet have caused the obesity level in the US to increase bringing along with it disease and death. America as a whole needs to become more physically active and more aware of what they put in their bodies. My generations life expectancy has gone down due to childhood obesity. "Obesity could shorten the average lifespan of an entire generation — today's children — by two to five years, according to a controversial new life-expectancy analysis."(www.usatoday.com)