Social Justice Project

ELA Social Justice Project

By Gus Miller, 802

Newspaper Article: Citation: Bosman, Julie; Eckholm, Erik; et al. “Ferguson Grand Jury Faced Mass of Evidence in Decision, Much of it Conflicting.” New York Times 25 November 2014. Web.

In this article, the authors discuss a colossal load of evidence presented before the indictment of Officer Wilson. Many witnesses have made many claims involving every aspect of the event. I think this article deals with injustice since people are discussing evidence that could determine the fate of a white man who killed a black teen. It seems obvious that racism is present in this conflict, and that anyone would try to defend the behaviors of Wilson is outrageous. People that are trying to advocate for the acquittal demonstrate clearly that structural racism still plagues this country. This connects with my everyday life and everyone else’s, since throughout society black people are still suffering from bias and ingrained inequality that should have been abolished along with slavery 140 years ago. It makes me think about the painful reality of white privilege today, and how everyone needs to work towards real equality.

Everyday Injustices:

-Homophobia, “gay” used as an insult

-Structural racism

-Structural sexism

-Poverty

-Bullying

-Jokes about serious matters like the Holocaust

-People casually calling each other “retarded”

-Casual use of racial slurs

-White privilege

-Stereotyping

Something that really bothers me almost every day is homophobia. At school, people will casually call each other gay, and in popular music, movies, books, and TV shows, people are usually shown as straight couples. People still seem to be very afraid of homosexuality, and constantly I read about debates over gay marriage where rich white people are complaining about how being gay is a sin. The worst part is the idea itself of homophobia, though. People are trying to control who others are allowed to officially join in marriage even though it doesn’t affect them in any way. In Russia, being openly gay is a criminal offense. It’s really sad how people in power try to control so many aspects of other people’s lives. Gay and lesbian people get a lot of hate, and it seems like everywhere there are people who just detest the idea of same sex relationships. People sometimes try to justify themselves with religion or other beliefs, but just as often people that are openly homosexual are verbally assaulted by bigoted people who have no good reason to hate them. Throughout society, homosexuality is considered odd at best and cause for open hatred at worst, and people are constantly trying to control who others love.

Movie/TV Show: One popular TV show I watch often is Family Guy. In this show, the main characters are the Griffins, a white, well off family. In the show, most teens are likewise depicted as white, and well off, living in a house ranging from being nice to being a lavish mansion. The popular teens are all skinny, blonde cheerleader girls and big, tough jocks who are obsessed with physical, competitive sports. Obviously these are gross stereotypes, and the truth couldn’t be further. The most realistically portrayed characters are the nerdy boys with square glasses and the brown haired girls who aren’t tall, skinny, and visually flawless, although even these are a far cry from reality. The stereotypes are so exaggerated it’s funny, but it also makes me think of the teens never shown on Family Guy: The poor, timid children with financial difficulties, the ones with mental difficulties, the homeless ones. It’s disturbing how all of popular culture portrays all the people anyone would want to be as the flawless straight white people who are successful and rich and famous. There are so many stereotypes being portrayed that it almost blocks out the ideas of people who have difficult lives. But it just makes me think more about the teens who aren’t models or superstars, and how unjust the world is.

Poem Analysis:

To be twenty again,

believing with such fervor,

sure of the way,

committed unto death if need be.

Willing to offer myself without reservation,

to share my talents and hopes

without equivocation.

To be twenty again,

believing change is possible

because I have changed,

believing barriers can be lifted,

distrust transcended

because I have known friendship

across the color line, deep friendship.

To be twenty again

and to know the power

of a social movement

that transforms its participants

as well as the world,

to know I've found a place, a way of life that allows love of God

and commitment to justice

to flourish side by side.

To fall in love again and again

with life and idealism as it manifests

first in one and then another

young man's eyes.

I lived so intensely,

believed so absolutely,

felt so acutely.

I had the energy to do so

and lacked the experience

to feel afraid or use caution.

I grew outside the bounds

of my white, middle class upbringing.

I grew outside the experience

of my professors at college.

There were times of connection

and transcendence,

times of anger

and fear of losing all we'd worked for.

There were times of trust

and times the trust shriveled

in the light of a sharp afternoon.

Oh, to be twenty again

and refuse compromise.

To believe justice is attainable.

That love will replace greed.

To believe people can live

and work in mutual respect for one another.

To be twenty again

and believe it is all possible.

Citation: Allen, Chude Pam. To Be Twenty Again. Chude Allen, 1994. Web.

This poem embodies the true nature of the civil rights movement to me. It shows the vigor and courage but also naiveté that young people have and how they believe they can change everything, spurred on by friendships and smaller victories. It illustrates the hope that good human traits can drive out bad human nature, and implies at the somber realization of the difficulty involved in defeating bigotry and greed. It hints at how wonderful a completely segregation-free world would be but also at the difficulty in attaining such a world. The author uses the ideas of smaller changes pushing bigger ones forward and how the transitions experienced during young adulthood inspire people. This poem shows the author’s experiences as a twenty-year old  and how they affected her and motivated her. Throughout the piece, there is a feeling of melancholy as she implies that she was less wise and more inspired when she was younger, believing in things that couldn’t happen as easily as she thought. This shows how difficult racism is to combat, since some people simply want to be better, and it’s not something that can just be driven out of their heads. It embodies the feelings that combat racism, like love, friendship, and acceptance. This poem  deeply describes some of the most crucial parts of the civil rights movement.

Interview:

My dad’s response to the question “What is your opinion about what is fair and unfair in this world? Why do you think this?”:

“It's hard to say what's good without stepping on someone's toes. What's good to me might be evil to someone else! But I do believe that love is good, and things that come from love—like generosity, compassion, empathy, working for equality—are all good, and make up much of what is good in our lives. Unfortunately I don't see much that is fair. In anything, the rule of our world is unfair: sexism, racism, even "ageism" are all ways to be unfair that have been part of human culture for as long as we know. They are part of the structure of civilization, so deep that sometimes we aren't even aware of them, since they are built into our language, our assumptions, even our attempts to be fair. So, in my opinion, a big part of being good is working (hard!) to look out for structural iniquity, whether it's racism, sexism, or some other way to draw a line between groups of people so as to make one group out as better than the other.”

This answer talks about how what’s good counteracts what’s unfair. I think it touches down on how human nature itself has unfairness so deeply ingrained into it so as to be inextricable to a certain extent. Humans work together and strive to grow, but their basic instincts call for them to do “bad” things to benefit themselves more often than not. People are certainly capable of doing good things, but it’s easier and sometimes more beneficial to themselves to act unfairly. I think the goodness comes from not doing the bad things and working to help others besides yourself. Unfairness similarly stems from people trying to elevate themselves above others. I agree with the idea of bringing everyone to the same level as being a core aspect of being good, and it’s vital to work together and to be above the basic instincts of superiority that lead to inequality.

News Response:

Citation: Botti, David, and Strasser, Franz. “Ferguson Shooting: What do Mothers Tell Their Children?” Online Video Clip. BBC News. 26 November 2014. Web. 27 Nov, 2014.

This video was very interesting to watch. I wouldn’t have any idea about what to do if I were a parent of a child in Ferguson, and seeing how these people so afflicted by racism reacted to help their children was actually quite inspiring. Having to take care of young children in such a chaotic and dangerous situation would be very difficult and require an astounding amount of judgement to do the right thing. Racism and death are both very tough topics to introduce to little kids, and in this case, when it’s so hard to dodge around the issue, it would be an extraordinarily impressive feat to successfully tell the truth without causing too much stress. It’s crucial to find a balance that will sate the curiosity of the child without causing too much stress, which is why these mothers are so strong and admirable.

World-Changing Person Interview:

My mom works at CUNY every day as a librarian to provide services and resources to students in New York City, many of whom are from low income families. She gives them access to calm, quiet learning environments that aren’t normally available to them. She also helps let them use books and important information resources for free that would normally cost more than they could afford. There are librarians to help teach them to do research and develop skills they might not have normally picked up. She enjoys this work since she’s interested in helping students in need get college degrees so they can be able to get good jobs and be successful. This work makes her feel fulfilled since she can cause big improvements in people’s lives and help get them better lives.

Going Bovine Response

Going Bovine Reading Blogpost

Gus Miller, 802

Libba Bray’s “Going Bovine” follows sixteen year old Cameron as he ventures through America after being diagnosed with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, and told he is going to die. He experiences many strange things, and an angel named Dulcie guides him and protects him from death along the way. Many of his encounters are questionable at best, and early on he starts seeing and doing surreal things. This is a book about reality itself, about what life really is and means. As Cameron travels, he does strange things that seem like they could never happen, but what he gets from them is meaningful, true, and applicable to real, mundane life. This book is about the core of human behavior and about what really matters in life.

Throughout the book, Cameron has experiences that are impossible to figure out. Although at first, everything seems to be set in a realistic world, things phase into surreality, and stuff like traveling to alternate universes and befriending a talking garden gnome could just as easily be a hallucination as they could be real. The quote “we have been many places. Visited many worlds,” said by an interdimensional band shows how far-out the story is. However, it’s what he gains from these experiences and how they affect him that really matters. He learns the fleeting nature of life and how to live it to the fullest. By being put into a situation where he is exposed to things he’s completely new to and being forced to make odd decisions about possible side effects of his disease while also being on the verge of death, he learns more about the core of himself.

The experiences that Cameron has and the things he learn all come from people and other not entirely human entities he meets along the way. Supporting characters like Gonzo, a dwarf who accompanies him, Balder, a talking yard gnome, and Dulcie, an angel. These characters have unique personality traits that affect Cameron in different ways and build on the depth carried throughout the book. Having them at Cam’s side are what makes him learn about life and how his trip changes from  weird, uninspiring hallucination to a fantastical but at the same time believable journey through human nature. These people mold him into the person he is at the end.

Cameron’s goals seem to be very average and undemanding, until you throw in the fact that he’s going to die. While what he gains on the way isn’t what he wants at first, it’s what he needs, and it turns out to be what brings him happiness. He learns to set aside material parts of the world and realizes that the most precious things aren’t tangible. In a strange afterlife-type universe, Cameron says with his friend Dulcie, “She grins wide then. It’s like the sky can’t take it anymore, and it explodes… something new being born.” By experiencing things that would be less impactful or meaningful through the lens of impending death, he’s able to derive more value and become happier than a normal person experiencing the things he does, even as and perhaps because his life is drawing to a close, and when he finally dies, there’s a whole new realm of existence for him to explore.

In conclusion, “Going Bovine” is a deep and artful story that illustrates the true importance of life and how it can be drawn from the core of human nature. Bray uses humor but also heartfelt emotion to express these sentiments, and her techniques are effective at delivering a truthful and deep message. She uses surreality, social interactions, and mortality to bring out the best of her characters, and although the story seems like an absurd fantasy, there’s real, important things to be learnt from it. The experiences in the book are able to convey a sense of enlightenment and are simple yet important. Overall, this book uses creative story elements to create an unforgettable experience of human nature and the meaning of happiness.

Fahrenheit 451 Response

Fahrenheit 451 Response Final

By Gus Miller, Class 802

In Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, a corrupt government sends firemen to incinerate any books and structures hiding them. In this future, the government utterly dominates society, feebling their minds with promises of pleasure and keeping their wits nullified with mindless TV programs and entertainment. In order to be left to its own devices, the government keeps its citizens off its back with a false sense of utopian prosperity and of effortless, instant gratitude. While much of the world is in a difficult situation, the people of this country live in blissful ignorance of the world’s state as a war approaches. Guy Montag, a fireman, starts wondering about his job and his country, which sets him on an investigation where he breaks his mind free of the cumbersome chains of society, allowing him to question the true motives and actions of the master puppeteers in power. This book speaks to me about how power and control can compel people in a position of authority to become completely corrupt, sacrificing their own people’s freedom for a throne of political might.

Books are contraband in Bradburys’ universe, and owning them will swiftly escort you to jail and your house to a smoldering pile of ashes. The books are said to be full of corrupting knowledge that will unnecessarily complicate and send into discord the lives of readers. the government has been able to convince people of this by imprisoning offenders and using particularly philosophical excerpts to convince people of their correctness. Thus, the illegality of books is portrayed as a benevolent form of protection for the people meant only in good will to protect their happiness. Fire captain Beatty says at one point to Montag, “Don’t step on the toes of the dog lovers, the cat lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico.” This shows how the government is trying to avoid upsetting different groups of people by normalizing all media into placid, inoffensive pictures and cartoons, and eventually, they banned books altogether. The ideas present throughout history’s literature could pose a threat to the position the government has society pinned, and therefore the government wants to eliminate them by any means necessary.

The government seems unaffected by, and even willing to inflict, detrimental states of mind on its own citizens. They use certain techniques to help move people’s thoughts away from real issues, and the destruction of books is one of the prime ways they do this. In order to please but also silence people, media is neutralized, and offenders of the strict laws against behaviors that could threaten the government are quietly locked away. Fire stations house automatons called mechanical hounds, horrific octopedal robots that inject their victims with lethal doses of anesthetics, hunting them down with advanced tracking technology based on chemical recognition. These weapons show that the government is bent on the silent subjugation of its subjects, utilizing something that could be compared to a brutal war machine to tuck away violators of its self-protecting laws. “...The rat, cat or chicken caught half across the areaway, gripped by gentling paws while a four-inch hollow steel needle plunged down from the proboscis of the Hound to inject massive jolts of morphine or procaine.” The fact that the government would unleash this on their own people is further made astonishing by the fact that while hunting for Montag, the government tells a Hound to pounce on and kill an innocent man taking a walk, proclaiming that they were Montag to make the people feel safe. This shows that the government is truly willing to kill and lie, programming machines of murder to control the people they are supposed to help and guide.

The government wants to be absolutely powerful, a dictatorship under the facade of a democracy. They use techniques like hoodwinking their people and hunting down threats to attain and preserve this goal, and also to hide some very dark secrets.. However, behind the benevolent guise the government hides under, the world is vastly more far gone than they want anyone to know. In fact, the country is on the brink of a nuclear war, with tensions building and bombers shrieking through the sky. However, amidst this torrent of threat to their utopian control over the country’s citizens, the government characteristically hoodwinks the people, having them believe that everything is just fine and the war is going to be won swiftly and effectively, isolating the people from the outside world and severing any connections people might feel to anyone outside of their bubble of safety and mindless satisfaction. In fact, things couldn’t be going worse. “And the war begun and ended in that instant…  The merest flourish of light and motion in the sky… As quick as the whisper of a scythe…” The city, amidst their interactive television walls and super speed cars and parlors, was bombed into oblivion, showing the complete and utter extent to which the government wants to control people: it would have people believe that everything was centered around their pleasure just as their virtual utopia was on the verge of annihilation for that much more power over their blind subjects.

In conclusion, Fahrenheit 451 is a deep and somewhat foreboding book that shows the consequences that could spring from a corrupt government and the way knowledge can affect people. Bradbury takes a strong position in censorship, and it shows how society operates and how people affect many aspects of each others’ lives. It explores the potential of power-hungry people to spell civilizations’ doom and use their people as a stairway to a throne of power. The government seems like the kind of monstrous, terrible group of people that would never take into consideration anything besides their goal. However, Bradbury shows that people like this would consider everything, and that they are simply very smart and calculating people with no sense of moral. They logically think through things and use a variety of horrible but effective methods to make themselves among the very few people in the entire country who actually knows anything besides the things imprinted into their minds by others. This book shows the potential for people to desperately seek power, stopping at nothing to gain utter control over everything.

"Ashes" Reading Response

Ashes Reading Response Final

Gus Miller, Class 802

The short story Ashes, by Susan Beth Pfeffer, speaks to me about trust and human motivations. It follows a day or so in the life of Ashleigh, a teenage girl whose parents are divorced. Her mom is practical and efficient, while her dad is thoughtful, carefree, and a “dreamer.” Her dad, although he seems to be nice, loving, and wanting to bring out the best in Ashes, as he calls Ashleigh, is gradually revealed to be manipulative and have his own motives, which he uses Ashes for by making her feel special. Her parents dislike each other, and have had many arguments, her mom thinking of the dad as an “irresponsible bum.” The story follows her as she spends an afternoon and evening with her dad, who slowly persuades Ashes to “borrow” the two hundred dollars in cash her mother keeps in a teapot in the living room of her house. At the end, she is forced to in essence decide for herself between which parent she wants to disappoint less. The motives and actions of the father are shown to greatly affect his family, destroying their relationships and affecting greatly his wife and daughter.. This shows how such actions and desires can affect others, and the way love, wants, and needs influence teenagers.

Ashes herself seems to be an average teenager. She expresses admiration and love for her father, and the author uses the weather and environment as metaphors for how he makes her feel. She seems to like the way her dad is more than the way her mom is, since her mom’s practicality limits Ashes and makes her feel ordinary and restricted. Although her father makes her feel wonderful and special, he wants to use her for his own ulterior motives, and her mother is clearly the person she needs in order to develop as a person.The father repeatedly says that Ashes is “one in a million”, which she acknowledges is false, but still makes her feel amazing. This line is utilized throughout the story to show the way the father feels about Ashes. There’s no doubt that he loves her. At one point, before Ashes enters her mom’s house to take the money in the teapot, the father says, “You’re one in a million,” and the “best daughter a man could dream of.” However, his activities and priorities are shown to be questionable at best, certainly not suitable for raising a teenager. Ashes is put in an excruciating situation where she faces the disappointment and sadness of one of her parents because of the father, and she has to rely on herself to distinguish between wants and needs, between which parent will affect her positively.

Ashes’ mother is shown to be a pragmatic character whose practicality harshly contrasts with her former husbands’ drifting, carefree attitude towards life.  Ashes finds herself held back by the nature of her mom, as shown in an instance of the story where her mom says that she can’t promise Ashes five dollars with which to go see a movie. The mom keeps supplies like money, food, water, flashlight batteries, and similar pieces of survival equipment with her in case of an emergency. These behaviors are polar opposites of Ashleighs’ father, and Ashes is not very fond of them. She wants the love and admiration of her father, but that comes with irresponsibility that can’t be introduced into a teenagers’ life without consequences reflected on the teens’ character. The father promised Ashes a necklace of stars when she was very young, however, according to ashes, “child support checks don’t always show up on time, and I never did get that necklace of stars.” These behaviors, when added up, show that the fathers’ actions weren’t always in the best interest of his family.However, her mother makes her feel safe, and the way she acts restricts Ashes’ freedom, but also protects her and nourishes her, allowing her to grow into a responsible person.

Ashes’ dad is the character that is used to define Ashes in this story; throughout it, Ashes makes connections and has flashbacks about the way her parents, but her father in particular, have shaped her life. The father seems to be a nice, joyful character, and throughout the story showers  Ashes with love and compliments. However, his true motives start seeping through once he takes Ashes to a diner. One of the most puzzling and most difficult things to figure out in the story is what her dad is really like on the inside. Even though he manipulates her, the way he treats her would suggest that he does love her and care greatly about her. At one point, after telling Ashes she should be a supermodel, a photographer, and a clothing designer, the Ashleigh thinks to herself that “Last week he’d told me to be an astronaut. The week before that, the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation. And the week before that, he’d been stunned by my spirituality.” These lines are an example of her father showing affection and pride, but it also rather blatantly shows that he’s trying too hard to make her feel good, and that there’s something else behind that façade. The most we can get from the content of the story is that the father loves Ashes, but still wants to use her for his own motives. However, his actions have had great effects on Ashes’ life, and have put her in a very difficult situation. This evidence would heavily indicate that her fathers’ life is in shambles, and he’s torn between his own needs and motives and the state of his fragmented family.

In conclusion,  Ashes is a very deep piece that speaks about love, motivation, and the consequences actions can have on peoples’ lives and emotions. The complicated situation, although it might seem far-out to some, is perfectly plausible, and it shows the ways people can affect each other, especially in intimate relationships such as marriage and parent to child. It effectively illustrates the way some people can be a mixture of love and kindness and  subtle manipulation, and how trust isn’t always something to be vested in someone just because of the intimate relationships mentioned above. It shows the ways developing people have mixed requirements and how different people can affect them, and how what’s good for them isn’t the same as what they need as developing human beings. Ashes is a deep story about the foundations of human emotion and how it truly works at the core.

Finished Books List

1."The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon, Sept. 20, 2014
2."Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury, Oct. 6, 2014
3."Akata Witch" by Nnedi Okorafor, Oct. 17, 2014 
4."The Killing Moon" by N.K. Jemisin, Nov. 6, 2014
5."The Maze Runner" by James Dashner, Nov. 8, 201
6."The Shadow Speaker" by Nnedi Okorafor, Dec. 2, 2014
7. "Lagoon" by Nnedi Okorafor, Jan, 15, 2015
8."1984" by George Orwell, Jan. 28, 2015
9."The Expeditioners" by S.S. Taylor, Feb, 9, 2015
10."The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" by Sherman Alexie, Feb. 17, 2015

Summer Reading Blog Response One: Every Day

   Every Day, by David Levithan, was the first book I read this summer. It follows an entity that calls itself "A". This being wakes up every day in a different body, or is forcefully wrenched into a new one at midnight. The book follows the events in A's life when it falls in love with a girl named Rhiannon. This book struck me as the kind of book that a "typical" teenager would enjoy, with teen characters that fall in love but have a hard, stressful relationship. I'm going to be blunt here: Not a good book for me. I can see why others might like this (my mom, for one, loves it), but I just don't like it. The idea of it was mildly interesting, but the way the author used that idea and what he wove around it did not appeal to me practically at all.

   Something important to note is that I don't like books with emotion. I don't mean that I would like a book to have its characters be emotionless robots, but I find too much blatant, sappy emotion to be boring and uncreative. The theme of this book was something that made me think, though. It did a good job at making me think about human nature, and about awareness of other people in our lives. I feel like this book could have been something I liked more had it told a different story. That being said, the story it actually did tell was rather dull to me. A did show good character development, however, which is something that I can give credit to. 

   When it comes down to it, though, the fact of the matter is that I don't like love stories. This book is nothing if not a love story. It was interesting, but it didn't make the cut for me. As I've said before, the concept was ge=reat, and I would have probably liked it a lot more if it had shifted genres.