The rules here are pretty simple:
- Find an article that deals with Washington DC or an aspect of the media on washingtonpost.com, or from the City Paper or the Afro or the Washington Examiner (all available online) and blog about it. It can be a summary, a response, an analytical piece--whatever you want. You can be serious, funny, or in between. You don't need to reference outside sources unless you want, but it would be nice to reference course materials--a reading or film where they fit.
- Please keep it clean, I may let my daughter read this. Granted, her 19 month old little brother I think dropped the F bomb (it sounded like "F you"...I'm hoping he just was expressing a desire for Cluck U and I misheard what he said) the other night while I was trying to put him to sleep, so maybe her environment is already polluted.
- Feel free to take risks. Creativity is a plus.
- If you want to link to something, please don't send us to any sites that might get us arrested or at least make us want to visit our local religious institution in order to cleanse our souls. To link, just type in what a word then highlight and click the link button, then paste your link. For example, check this out--welcome to DC!!! Wow...look at this bama! Is that Justin Beiber???
- Remember, 1 blog per unit. They must be done by the end of the week (i.e., Sunday)
- Feel free to comment on your classmates posts, but be nice.
My father spent thirteen years molding my life before he died. His enduring legacy was the numerous life lesson he instilled to aid me in my journey. His mantra was “No one owes you anything. Even when life seems insurmountable, set your goals and work towards them without hurting anyone in the process.” Coming from someone who was born into poverty and worked 18 hour days to build a substantial business, it was the do as I do lesson not do as I say. Julianne Maleaux’s article Racing to the Bottom in Afro comments on the “14 million officially unemployed people” suffering in America. The problems faced by Americans did not sweep onto the shores of our nation (Pacific or Atlantic) with the coming administration. The complexity of the problem is not just economic or racial. It is the orchestration of people who are working towards their own agendas without balancing the casualties “collateral damage” that will befall both the middle class and the struggling working class. We can spend many hours blaming our ruling parties for the problems we are in, and they are not blameless. We can decide that as a nation of all ethnicities, how we are going to plot our course to achieve our goals community by community. Or individually, since in America we are an individualistic society, chose to design a plan that at times may seem insurmountable: travel the world to seek our fortune for a time or for life, which ever we may choose. It is difficult to step outside of our comfort zone, but survival on next to nothing, pay check by pay check should push us to find other alternatives. If you fry an egg without salt and pepper, all you will get is an egg without salt and pepper. It is time to add a dash of spice. Take it from someone who came from somewhere else and had to rebuild their life from scratch: there is no shame in honest work with a life plan.
ReplyDeleteMs. Malveaux eloquently described the fact that “14 million people are just the tip of the iceberg...who are discouraged, dropped out of the labor market” (1). The statistics discussed by Ms. Malveaux was one in four of the 20 million Americans with one in two in the inner city. I totally agree with her statement that “employers won’t create jobs, government won’t create jobs, and rhetoric won’t put people back to work” (1). Her suggestion is entrepreneurship. This is more than a fair suggestion. I was raised by someone who struggled for years building a business that became successful. This is one way to achieve personal success, but as Americans who have arrived on these shores for four hundred years seeking their fortunes or was dragged kicking and screaming. There are many ways to achieve success in America. Find your way and work towards it. It is in the struggle that you will build a life worth living.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/battle-against-drugs-makes-gains-in-st-marys-county/2011/08/12/gIQABpTzPJstory.html
ReplyDeleteThis article does not mention race at all, but there are stereotypical markers of race throughout the article. Starting with the first paragraph, for example, it mentions "illegal dogfights", someone in the popular consciousness associated with innercity black culture. This is a broader theme I've noticed in the Washington Post. For example, in the crime sheets, there is no explicit mentioning of race, but because DC is so segregated, it is easy to guess the race of the criminal by the neighborhood in which the crime was committed. This makes me wonder if other markers, such as geographical location and stereotypical cultural practices, will be substituted as racial markers by the reader, in the absence of outright mentionings of race.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/district-mayor-decries-shoplifting-montgomery-police-say-7-11-flash-mob-used-word-of-mouth-not-social-media/2011/08/19/gIQAilojQJ_story.html
ReplyDeleteThe phrase "Thou shalt not steal" opens this article. It's very rare to see such outright moral posturing in a newspaper article, however position against stealing is now very controversial. Nonetheless, I wonder if we would see this opening if the article was not about 'flash mobs' of teenagers stealing from gas stations and markets. For example, an article about art thieves or an intricate bank robbery might look at the complicated process the thieves went through to carry out their heist. Here, a new robbery tactic – "flash mobs" -- is dealt with in a purely moral sense. The article goes on to show these mobs were not organized through social media, but through word of mouth, perhaps in response to moral condemnations of social media during the London riots, an attempt salvage the morality of technology which was praised so much during the event in Egypt.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/crime-scene/post/man-charged-in-southeast-dc-slaying/2011/06/29/AG3F1jqH_blog.html
ReplyDeleteShort crime reports. How is it decided which murders get a lot of coverage and which don't? What is the criteria for a notable "slaying" and one that merely gets a sentences on the Crime Scene blog? Last year in Baltimore, for example, a stabbing in Charles Village was front page news in the Sun, while the frequent weekened slaying get a brief mention in the crime sheets. Perhaps the frequency of murders in Southeast DC disqualifies it's murderers and murder victims from qualifying as "notable".