Multiculturalism in Schools

That beginning part of The White Boy Shuffle really stuck out to me. The Santa Monica multicultural elementary school Gunnar went to was wack and I noticed really weird parallels to my own elementary school experience that I know were not 'ok.

From 3rd to 5th grade I went to Booker T. Washington Elementary School here in Campaign. It's in the middle of a lower-class, mostly African American neighborhood, so when a few years prior to my transferring, when they decided to totally renovate the school and add in a 'Gifted Program', it was a somewhat big deal. My grade and the grades above me each had only 2 classes (so we just had an extra classroom) for whatever reason, and all the grades below mine had 3 classes of students. My class had 15 students, which was relatively small.
My 'Gifted' class of 15 consisted of mostly Asian and white kids. I was the token latino, and there was one African American girl. The other class consisted of 23 African American kids and one white girl. Its suffice to say, we had problems.
There was a weird mix of "you shouldn't see color", "embrace all cultures", "the other class is weird", and "speak properly goddamn it" between us, and the mostly white teachers. In the book the teacher asks "what shouldn't we judge people by? what should we judge them by instead?" and blah blah. We had somewhat of the same thing, between each other we practiced this no-difference shit because in our eyes we were all 'gifted'- our supposed 'smartness' made us all great friends with each other. On multicultural night we would all dress in our 'traditional' garb and eat each other's specially cooked foods. Yeah, multiculturalism worked so well within my class. We shamed the other class for not being as 'smart' as us. We all had long commute times because most of us lived west of Prospect.
How did this make the 'normal' class feel? not good. It must've felt horrible watching a bunch of kids that aren't anywhere near the color of your skin calling themselves 'gifted' and 'smart', living in comparatively much more wealth. Something that kind of makes me uneasy was a saying among the teachers- "ain't ain't a world and you ain't gonna use it". They paid special attention to the students in these 'normal' classes to speak 'proper' English, almost as if they were destroying the black vernacular.

All of this gifted/normal multicultural stuff really screwed with both classes minds to the point where we actively hated each other in 5th grade. My class was bonded through its 'giftedness' and the other class bonded through the fact it was 'normal', it was almost like they were being forced to believe that they were never going to get as far as those kids in my class, because they weren't gifted.
We can definitely see this when Gunnar moves to the 'hood' and his new school. I saw the Shakespeare thing and I instantly knew- I would have been one of those kids in the Shakespearean Garb, pitying the others. Its not something I'm proud of- I and my dumbass friends said many things that may have really instilled a sense of inferiority into the other class.

Gifted is a strong word. I don't use it anymore. I don't claim to be 'gifted', and I hope others stop using it as well. All children have gifts- you just have to let them explore these gifts. Sorting them out into 2 different classrooms and telling one class that they're 'better' than the other solves nothing.

The role of 124

In Beloved, the parts that happen in the books' 'present' happen around 124 Bluestone road.
So that got me thinking, how important is the house within the book?
Baby Suggs rents 124, then Sethe. Beloved is killed at 124. The boys run away from 124. Denver barely leaves 124.
So lets begin from the beginning. Baby Suggs, a recently freed slave, rents 124 for cheap as long as she helps out elsewhere from time to time. This must've been huge for her- she had property, when before she was the property and couldn't own anything. She starts leading those congregations in the woods, parties at 124, and other things within the community. 124 becomes like the central hub of the community. Then Sethe and her children arrive, there's a big party, and suddenly 124 isn't the hub of the community anymore. Suddenly, everyone hates 124. A period of what one could call "isolation" begins.
Schoolteacher and his boys arrive and Sethe tries to kill her children and gets sent to prison
- Suggs retreats into 124 and locks herself into her room
- When Sethe returns from prison, she's an outcast of the community, she spends her days at 124.
- Beloved haunts 124. No one else even know she's there.
- Denver barely leaves 124.
When Paul D arrives he kinda encourages Sethe and Denver to get out of that isolation, to get out from the confinement of 124, and it briefly works until (wowow) Beloved (or maybe its not Beloved, who knows) arrives and forces Sethe and Denver back into their isolated states within 124. Paul D fights a losing battle with Beloved until he gets mad at Sethe and leaves. At that point, Sethe and Denver become even more isolated from the community than they were before. Finally, Denver realizes something is wrong, and that if she stays in 124 they're all gonna die. Its when she leaves 124 that things get better, like if it was 124 that was holding back her potential.

Another interesting thing is that I can't recall them ever calling 124 "home". The only "home" they mention is Sweet Home, the place with so many bad memories (yet good memories too?) attached to it. Its kinda like the thing Mr. Mitchell said in class about Sethe saying "yeah its not 'home' but its the last place we were all together" type thing. Its strange to me that, after like 18 years, they still can't seem to call 124 'home'. It just has no good memories attached to it. The first 28 days are ok, but after that it goes downhill until you have a haunted baby house.

Thats about it, I just found it interesting how a the grand majority of the book revolved around 124 and sweet home

Also, do y'all think there's a reason to why Morrison named it "124 bluestone"?
I might be thinking into it a bit too much but I think it might be refering to Sethe's children: the 2 sons and Denver.

Waifus? In AALit? what

So a while back I remember Lauren's poetry discussion, where she discussed JPEGMAFIA's song "Grimy Waifu", and we had a really good discussion about it, and I especially remember the part where we were discussing these lines:
 
Uh, these bullets coming at you
Take these bullets for me, that's my grimy waifu (Hot)
They keep on dumping the tool
Take these bullets from me, that's my, ooh (Woah, huh)

I remember reading this at home and asking myself "what the heck?" and it seems like other people had that reaction too. We all kinda know what a waifu is, and it seemed really weird that it was being described as "grimy" and being told to take bullets for From him. After the class ended I was still thinking about these lyrics, and now I think it makes a bit more sense.

So, Nico, I haven't been on social media ever and have no idea what a waifu is.

Ok. So a waifu is basically a fictional female character (usually from an anime) which someone feels a connection to which someone feels really really, really, attracted to. The word itself, wife, is an English loanword to the Japanese language that began appearing in the late 1980s. The pronunciation changed, and now its being reintroduced to English in its altered form, waifu. It still means the same thing though, but now its associated to fictional characters.

But liking a fictional 2D girl is weird. How does this happen? Why do people have waifus?

Yeah its weird. It baffles me how people can actually be ok with this. However, actually crushing on fictional characters isn't impossible. 
Yeah, I didn't know either.
So it turns out that actual research has been done on stuff like this. One experiment done to compare the  interpretation  of  emotional  body  language displayed by animated characters compared to that of real actors showed that the animated body language could be accurately interpreted. From the emotions correctly interpreted, more were of sadder emotions than of happier, livelier ones. Basically- the humans could identify sadness in the animated characters better than they could happiness. idk. It is also totally possible to develop feelings for a being you made up. The human brain is... weird.
So if you're a sad person who is horrible at social interactions, ig you could see the appeal or actually manage to connect to characters who show wide ranges of emotions. that character becomes the waifu. The waifu then becomes an escape from reality of sorts.
Its strange, I know.
I guess as long as people don't take it to the extremes, its fine. Some people keep on going through life because of their waifus, and I don't think its right to shit on people for it. Ig we have to understand some people really have trouble interacting with actual people. At this point however, its become more of a meme, and people use it more for fun than because they've actually somehow crushed on a cartoon character

So what the heck does this have to do with my interpretation of these lines?
I think we all agreed that by 'waifu' he meant gun. In the past, the army framed your gun as your girl. You bring it everywhere, its with you always; while eating, while on duty, while in bed, everywhere. In thise sense you'd be creating a sort of connection to it- it's your lifeline on the front lines right? Thats a pretty deep bond. By giving it a gender from the start, the gun could become a type of waifu, if the term is used loosely.
The 'grimy' part is one that confused me more. A "waifu", given that it means wife, isnt something someone would (or should, at least) call grimy. However, given that it is a gun that has seen duty (possibly) I guess it makes sense. In the end, this section is about the bond formed between a man and his gun.

Janie and Jody: never meant to be

I think we all know; from the get go, Janie should've just ignored Jody.
I'm not saying that she shouldn't have left Logan, but hey, Jody was just as bad.
Janie herself has basically this whole time been on a quest of self-fulfillment. At first, when she's with her grandmother, she isn't really sure of what she wanted to do with her life. While sitting under the tree she sees the communion of that bee and flower. That seems to make her feel something, like she wants to have that, but she can't really explain what that is.
Logan killicks is definitely not what she wanted. After that small initial phase of 'poetic' talking, he just tries to get her to do what he wants, and doesn't want to meet half-way.
-By the way, did I feel bad for the way they left each other?
idk
Logan did threaten to kill her, and that age difference was a bit too large in my book, but I also feel like she could've tried a little harder, no? Both her and Logan had too much pent up hate for each other that they might have been able to resolve had they just talked?
who knows really.
Anyways, Janie just wasn't feeling it with Logan, Logan just doesn't seem to feel anything at all.
Pop! here's Jody and wow hes a good fast talker
As we discussed in class, hes represents ambition- he was going to go out there and get stuff done. He seemingly offers a path away from the boring Logan. To me, I think Janie saw him as a guy who, by following his ambitions, would also be able to help her with her own?
After watching 'Frozen' I know never to believe people like that.
Jody's definitely one of those guys who wants to control everything. He believes that by controlling everything he'll achieve some sort of fulfillment, and that he will be happy. Like, he just goes up to town and by doing things he becomes the mayor, which should've made him happy, but then he starts becoming more controlling of Janie herself. He holds this illusion that he can be happy if he controls everything until the disease starts eating away at him.
Janie just kinda wanted to experience that bee/flower thing. The ambitions Jody seemed to be able to offer that, but when he became more and more controlling to try to achieve his own fulfillment, he stifled Jamie's ambitions in the process.
I wouldn't be able to imagine that going on for 20 frickin' years. And like, the whole time, she keeps her mouth shut, so she's just keeping all of her anger pent up, until that last encounter with the dying jody, where she goes nuts.

Guys, this is why we just need to sit down, and have nice conversations with each other.
Imagine how different this story would be if these couples had been non-toxic.

Stereotypes and stuff I guess.

Throughout this book we've seen lots of instances where stereotypes are mentioned, and its interesting to me how different characters go around these stereotypes.
First off from the get go we have the grandfather. As we all know by now his 'dying words' or whatever was telling his family to play the *stereotype* of black people being submissive while not actually being submissive behind their backs. In this sense he is 'assuring' the white people that he is doing what hes told but in reality he isn't. Hes using a stereotype to push his own motives.
The same can be said for Blesdoe, but he has a much more sophisticated(?) manner of serving the white donors, and letting them believe they have power.

However what really interested me was that one part where the narrator went to the brotherhood party and that one guy asked if he could sing, and the other brothers removed him from the scene.
That, to me at least, was really, really, funny. The brotherhood is always like "we don't see race/ we're postrace", etc etc, yet here they are asking these stereotypical questions. The question doesn't even bother the narrator, the fact they removed him from the scene did. That whole section of "we're not like him, we would never ask you to sing for us" is something that is pretty amusing to me.
Even in the present day world, minorities sometimes have this happen to them.
I think its something most of us have seen before, either in real life or in movies, where person 1 says something that might kinda be stereotypical to person 2, and while person 2 doesnt really take much offense, person 3 butts in and seems more offended that person 2, and starts talking for them, etc etc.

Nico do you like tacos?
yeah, they'r-
why would you ask that? Just because hes Mexican doesn't mean he likes tacos! Mexican food isn't just tacos, you need to get your facts str-
I'm not Mexican.
Not all latinos are Mexican. I'm an American citizen. By birth. I'm not a Mexican citizen, I don't have a Mexican ID, and when I go to Mexico, I still have to fill out all the forms that you do. Why do you assume, then, that I'm Mexican?
Does the fact I like tacos mean I'm Mexican? Does the fact I like tacos have anything to do with my race? With my ethnicity? Can only Mexican people like tacos? What about other people? Do you like eating tacos? Are you Mexican?

Normally, of course, it doesn't end well.
I guess its good that people are aware of stereotypes. Yet this means that sometimes, by acknowledging these stereotypes, we somehow get it into our minds that no one within that category is what that stereotype says.

"Mexicans like tacos." -> "Not all Mexicans like tacos." -> "Never ask anyone who seems remotely Mexican if they like tacos, you'll hurt their feelings."

Then, we're more likely to want to correct anyone who mentions that stereotype to a person of said category, as to not hurt person of said category's feelings (and, I guess, perhaps to kinda flex, maybe (?), like, "I am more socially aware than they are, I understand you better than them" type of thing. Idk. Just thoughts). This is what happens in that scene.

We are humans. We like to classify things. Even if we don't consciously knowledge it, we can tell if one person is Asian or Latino or "White", and even then we can split it up even more (Hes Brazilian, shes Chinese, they're English). The brotherhood claiming to be postracial is an obvious lie, as they obviously see the narrator to be different from them.
Claiming to be postracial adds to the invisibility the narrator has.
Did I make a point? Maybe. idk

The River's Kiss

I really don't feel like writing about invisible man right now, so I'll be writing a bit more in depth about my poem I shared with the class today, and talking a bit about what I didn't get to say.
For those in 3rd period who are just looking for something to comment on, my poem was the short yet intense "Suicide's Note" by Langston Hughes:

 

The calm, 

Cool face of the river

Asked me for a kiss.

I remember just flipping through the Anthology looking for a poem to talk about and this one caught my eye pretty quickly. It was short but from the get-go I noticed that it could totally have a much deeper meaning than just someone diving into a river.
Here was my thought process: firstly, its Suicide's Note, not The Suicide note or simply 'Suicide note'. So was it suicide personified that was speaking? Honestly, I rolled that in my head for a bit, but it never really seemed to stick very well. Its not like the suicide itself could have thoughts, and a suicide can't commit suicide. I ended up just thinking about the speaker as the person who committed suicide, talking to us from the grave, kind of explaining his actions. As someone brought up in class, the suicide was a very immediate and swift decision, or at least it seemed to be. Mr. Mitchell brought up the point of narcissism, that its like at the moment, the speaker wasn't really thinking about anyone else other than himself and the river. It was like if nothing could stop him from wanting to 'kiss' the river.
Narcissus would always look into the water and see his own reflection right? This is where I got the idea that perhaps the reader too looked into the river and saw his reflection. Given the tone of the poem, which seems very relaxed, I can assume that the speaker's face was calm and 'cool'. Perhaps yes, the speaker wanted to give himself a kiss, in which case, his own narcissism was the cause of his death, and I can't really say I feel bad for the speaker.
But then there's another definition of a 'cool' face that I talked about in my poetry talk as well. A 'cool face' could also refer to an unfriendly, an apathetic face.
Rivers are beautiful.
You know it, I know it.
Well, at least the non-polluted ones are.
If you felt like something with a beautiful face was apathetic towards you, that it was uninterested in you, would you not want to be acknowledged by it? Would you not want it to notice you, so that you could fully see and surrender to its beauty? If this was the case, then when the river asks for a kiss, then the speaker was much more interested in obliging to the river than truly wanting to die. Maybe all the speaker wanted was a kiss, maybe in his life he felt sad and alone. Touch deprivation can truly send someone spiraling into depression fairly quickly.

Something that I didn't bring up in class, but I read elsewhere, was that wanting to die, wanting to not be alive, and wanting to kill oneself are very different feelings. I don't think the speaker wanted to die, nor do I think the speaker wanted to kill himself. I feel like, in these situations, the person would be much more tense. If someone wanted to die or kill themselves, I feel like they would not put so much emphasis on the river wanting a kiss.
Our speaker must've finally found peace by being able to kiss the river and not be alive anymore. Kisses in literature are often seen as signs of love, obviously, but also hope. In his last moments, maybe the speaker was hopeful that this would end his sorrows? There is also the fact that in literature, rivers are also used as metaphors for the passing of time, that time is free, like the water (I thought this was important to add, because the speaker could have easily jumped into a pond or lake with the same results, why was a river chosen?), and death is the abrupt stopping of time. In this sense, perhaps the speaker hopes that he will become immortal? Or maybe, that he will become an icon, that people will remember him?
These are some thoughts I had when reading through the poem. Its a poem I'd like to share with more people, if possible, because it has a much deeper meaning in it than one can see at a first glance.

Blindfolds over blindfolds.

In Invisible man, chapter one, we see the narrator put into this extremely demeaning and dehumanizing experience which he seems totally ok with. He is kind of forced into the barbaric battle royal where he and the others are blindfolded and put into the ring to fight each other.

As we discussed in class, this specific part of the text is filled with symbolism and things that could be interpreted in many different ways, like how for instance, the blindfolds are made of while cloth. The blindfolding itself is also symbolic. The white men themselves are metaphorically blinded, as they can’t see these boys as actual human beings, with feelings and emotions, to them they are just beasts who are fighting for their entertainment. The boys themselves are not only physically blinded, but this also represents how much they in reality can’t see; that all of this ‘good will’ actually keeps them below the white men, as they have to rely on the white men for charity. Also, the boys know there is a cash prize at the end, but what they don’t know is that to get said prize, they must conform to the stereotype that black men are primitive, fighting beasts. Within this fight, we can see symbolism of how many black people had to struggle to reach a prize of ‘goodwill’ that was so often out of reach for them. However, the fact that our narrator could see through this mask, and avoid punches and swings, could also be symbolism for looking through the metaphorical mask, though in the end, it didn’t help him that much. 

Like, how we discussed in Native Son, even though Bigger knew that racism was holding him back, even though he could sort of (or at least thought he could) ‘see’ through his blindfold, or, sometimes, when Wright pulled the blindfold for us, in the end it did him no good. The same thing happens to our narrator, he plays the game, but in the end he is taken out by another, who himself had the metaphorical mask still on, and didn't see that by fighting so hard he was actually enforcing stereotypes. And even though this other guy won, he too had to suffer through the coin grab, which meant that his ‘elevated status’ was knocked back down again as all the boys were re-humiliated for the pleasure of the white men.

I guess, sort of, this also kinda ties into the poem we read today, "A poem for players", where it says, yes you can do this, you can do that, but not as yourself. The boys could box, but it wasnt normal boxing, they had to play by the white mens' rules, or not be able to play/be humiliated even more. 

As a conclusion, the blindfolding and battle royal were very important within this chapter. The fact that the narrator could sort of 'see through' it may be a theme that might come up later?