"Controversial"

Something I know I've touched on in a previous post but never really expanded on was the fact that prominent black female writers are often banned from local libraries or school libraries. There are a number of reasons that this could be the case. One might say that this is because these women are more willing to deal with issues that are considered "taboo" in our society. But I think that you can't really say that without delving into why these issues are taboo in the first place. And the answer is that the people with "better guns" have taken over the media and the stories that get told.

I'm lucky enough to go to a school that does value the stories of marginalized people. Most of my friends at other schools aren't going to read The House on Mango Street or Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. Still, even here, we read at least one Shakespeare play every year, because that's what you do in high school English. You read Shakespeare. And while Shakespeare definitely deserves his place as a great playwright, he also represents the kinds of people who get their stories told without censorship in America: white males.

Historically, white males have had the power. And having that kind of power means that they get their stories told often and well, to the point where it controls what we deem "controversial" and what we think of as normal. Shakespeare's tale of two kids committing suicide out of "love" is considered less problematic than works written by women of color that deal with sexist and racist issues in our country. We're more comfortable with stories about white men because those are the people who got to tell stories for years and years. We're used to it. And we get uncomfortable when other kinds of writers write about their experiences, when they write about the issues that need to get talked about.

We know Shakespeare. Shakespeare's been the standard for hundreds of years. But power doesn't control the kinds of issues that need to get talked about. It shouldn't control who gets to talk.

A Greater Understanding

History has always been one of my favorite subjects. But the thing about it is, we study it in terms of broad cause and effect rather than the little everyday things that show how the events of the time we're studying affected these people's lives. This is where historical fiction comes in. Especially with the Internet, it's easy to learn everything you'd ever want to know about, say, the Communist Revolution in China... except for how people felt about it. Historical fiction gives us this final piece of knowledge that allows us to fully understand what happened.

When we hear the word "communism" in America, the first few things that come to mind are the Cold War, nuclear war, violence, death, and, above all, the failure of an ideal system. We don't give a thought to those who were in this system, who were affected by its failure. With Sijie's book, we are given insight into a world that isn't given nearly as much depth and meaning in America as it should be. Regular teenagers can identify with the characters, and from there see themselves in this kind of world.

It goes back to the single story we learned about at the beginning of the year. We think of communist countries in similar terms to those of Africa, without contemplating the meaning and depth that the events of this society have on these people. By reading Balzac, we drop this single perception of communist China for a deeper understanding of how it affected regular people like Luo and the narrator. Not only do we have a greater cultural understanding, we have a greater empathy for these individuals.

This Isn't So Bad

I feel that I've improved as an English student over the course of the quarter. Getting back into the groove of school was definitely a challenge, considering that I was coming back from three months of summer. I know I didn't try as hard as I probably should have on my summer homework, but since then I've really tried to get my act together. What with rehearsal and everything else I've been doing, I've been kind of stressed out lately.

I really wasn't as prepared as I should have been for the academic jump from freshman to sophomore year. I heard about it several times from advisors and such, but I never lingered on it enough to fully grasp it. But I feel like I've gotten the hang of this, finally. I know now that I need to work on my close reading and narrow down my thesis statement. And I know I can do this.

Ideas, Conversation, and Progress

Restricting the right to read is such a foreign concept to me. For years, my parents have let me explore various different genres and ideas with not that much of a leash. I've certainly never known if  books were banned in my community.

But as I was researching for this blog, I noticed a few things. I had heard of a lot of books that were banned or challenged. Harry Potter. The Hunger Games. Captain Underpants, for crying out loud! If that's not age-appropriate I don't know what is.  I also noticed that black female authors that I had heard of, such as Zora Neale Hurston, Maya Angelou, and Toni Morrison, ended up on the list a few times. It made me wonder if they would have received the same kind of treatment if they were white males.

I think that books are definitely dangerous... to those in power. Books contain ideas that shape beliefs and sometimes even change lives. They can inspire people to do things that maybe they wouldn't do before. They can instill passion in someone who may have been afraid before. Banning books is keeping people weak, and in fear, and unable to think for themselves. A lot of these books were banned because they started conversations. But the thing is, if we are to progress as a society, we need to start conversations. About science, or about technology. About human rights. Anything that can help us become better. If we don't know or even attempt to understand others' perspectives, every step the human race takes forward will ultimately result in another two steps back.

Just the Way Things Are

I'd like to counter this idea that our generation is coddled with another thought. Recently, I read that most teenagers are more stressed than most adults. It's not hard for me to believe, talking with other students on campus. I asked a friend on Tuesday, on a scale of 1-10, how stressful was her week? Her answer? 500,009.

And it's not because kids today are incapable of comprehending failure. The same article that said that teenagers are more stressed than most adults also said that our generation is expected to perform at a higher level than the last.

In addition, social media leads to a lot of problems that the last generation didn't have to deal with, like cyberbullying. We are followed constantly by other people's opinions and thoughts, and we're influenced by them constantly.

So, in conclusion, we have problems to deal with too. We aren't coddled, we aren't overprotected. We're just people.

My Red Plaid Shirt

Most Americans, while knowing there is a lot of horror in the world, tend to ignore it. We don't want the responsibility of having to solve these issues that seem to have nothing to do with us.

"My Nikes may have been made by child labor... but they also look awesome."

"My iPhone may have been made in sweatshop conditions... but I'm really high up on the Flappy Bird leaderboard."

There's a lot of stuff I would like to give up (my Nikes, my iPhone) but at the same time can't imagine giving up. But the main thing that comes to mind is that a lot of my clothes were made in China. I mean, everybody knows that working conditions, as well as environmental conditions caused by factories, are pretty awful. And I can't count the number of times I've seen the Made in China label and just shrugged, without even thinking about it. I like to buy my clothes cheap, and I don't know if my family could afford to buy clothes at a higher price. But I still wish things were different.

Fear, Inside and Out

A long time ago, I had to do a paper on whether or not violence in video games influences perpetrators of violence in the real world. At the time, I thought that was ridiculous. How could anyone be so immersed in a video game that they carry that mentality into the real world?

Now, I see things differently. Media has so much more power than we give it credit for. From a very young age, it controls the way we think and how we interpret the world around us. So, in a way, Gerbner's argument makes a lot of sense. We like to feel involved in any TV show we watch. If someone sees a world created by TV writers with a lot of violence and crime, they are inclined to feel involved in that action, carrying it into the real world.

But I also think that we influence the media more than we give ourselves credit for. If said TV show doesn't appeal to a lot of people, it'll get cut. We are the ones who are attracted to violence on television. That's why TV shows are violent. So, I think that television isn't the only thing to blame. We have a natural inclination to believe we aren't safe. We're always trying to attain the ultimate level of safety. Television feeds that fear more than creates it.

That's what "Once Upon a Time" is about. Nadine Gordimer doesn't ever mention the woman and her husband watching violent television. It could have been a detail that she didn't find important, but I don't think so. I think that it was their own fear of the world around them that prompted them to put up so much security that they didn't need. What the author is trying to say is that we place so much emphasis on being as safe as we can that, in the end, we hurt ourselves trying to protect ourselves from imaginary threats. Those threats don't necessarily have to present themselves in television. Most of the time, we come up with them all on our own.

The Man Falling From the Sky

When 9/11 hit, I was a year old, on the other side of the country, and watching Sesame Street. I don't even remember that. When my mom tells the story of how she felt during 9/11, that's the way she starts it; she was sitting with me, watching Sesame Street.

So when the anniversary of this tragic event rolls around every year, I feel unqualified to even talk about it. I have no recollection of it, and even if I did, I would just remember my mother screaming while she watched red and yellow fireworks. Sure, now I would know what those fireworks were, but it still wouldn't have as much of an impact on me as it did on my mom.

That said, I feel that this image helps me understand it a little bit better. It always amazes me how people can feel so powerless that they decide to fall to their deaths. So, this image shows how much power was robbed from America on that date. Fourteen years later, this tragedy still hits people as fresh as it did the day the event occurred. Most Americans have this image of the USA as a superpower, which is true most of the time... except when it's not. This image captures what happens when one is out of options, when he has to decide what's more important: controlling his fate, or letting it control him.

About Me and My Cloud....

Hello! You're probably either one of my classmates or some random person from the Internet. Whatever. I welcome all. So hello! I'm Taylor G. This is my blog for English. I'm a sophomore in high school. I like books (except for textbooks. Well, some textbooks. Some textbooks are actually really cool. But they're a lot harder to find than the boring ones.) I've never really blogged before, but I assume it's basically talking, but in visual form. So that's what I plan to do.



If you're one of those people that likes even more information, I have a link to this word cloud I made a couple days ago. It's got some important things on it. Like my hobbies (crying twenty times a day over Percy Jackson and trying to convince myself that Hogwarts is real despite the fact that most Harry Potter books can be found in the fiction section of the library.) Or my favorite candy (Twix. It's heaven in a candy bar.) Close family members (who annoy me and love me at the same time.) The city I was born (Vegas. My dad uses my birth as an excuse to "visit," aka gamble.) The city I like the best (Los Angeles. Most of my extended family lives there PLUS downtown LA has this really awesome bookstore with a yarn store and an art store INSIDE THE BOOKSTORE!!!!!! How cool is that?) And what I'd like to do when I grow up (well, there are lots of things I'd like to do when I grow up. I'd like to be a magician. However, I'm 99% sure that's not a possibility, so working in theater seems far more plausible. Better than getting a "real job.")

Taylor's Word Thingamajig - Word cloud - WordItOut

 Ciao,

Taylor G