"Humans of New York" Photographer Travels to Iran

Recently I have been following a photographer who keeps a blog/organization called "Humans of New York." Brandon, the photographer, walks the streets of the city, taking portraits of people he finds interesting. Recently, Brandon visited Iran for the first time. Following his work on Facebook, I saw that after returning to the US, he made a post starting "ON TRAVEL TO IRAN:"
This post mentioned that "The US government advises against all travel to Iran." I found this interestimg because in America, there tends to be a negative connotation with Middle Eastern countries because of the War on Terror. Many people are probably afraid to travel to Iran and the government just reinforces this fear with the travel warnings.

On the other hand, Brandon from Humans of New York tells his audience to take the government's advice with a grain of salt. He said, "You can greatly enjoy a country, while at the same time disagreeing with it’s government." Brandon's work reflects his ideas. All of the pictures on his blog are of people in Iran. Based on his posts, he learned a lot about Iranian culture while experiencing it firsthand on his trip. I like that he is encouraging Americans to keep an open mind.  If some Americans faced fears and traveled to countries they are more hesitant about,  they too would experience more culture and traditions of people all over the globe. Knowledge is the first step to understanding. This leads to respecting different cultures, and would elminate much of  the animosity towards them.

Here are the links to the Humans of New York website and Facebook Page.
http://www.humansofnewyork.com/tagged/iran
http://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork?fref=ts

Here are some of Brandon's photos from his trip:

Marginilization at Oberlin College

Last week, my sister, Rachel, told me that classes at her school, Oberlin College in Ohio were cancelled due to the fact that someone was standing outside the African American Heritage building wearing a Ku Klux Klan uniform. Besides that being the most severe event, other racist acts on campus had been reported. This blog is a Tumblr titled "Oberlin Microagressions" and its purpose is to record anything racist, anti-semitic, homophobic, sexist (etc) that has been said or written around the school. Here are some examples from the blog:

A note left at the Multiracial Resource Center

"No Niggers"  "Whites Only" 

When Rachel told me that this was happening at Oberlin, I could barely believe it. One of the things Oberlin is known for (and that Rachel takes pride in) is its acceptance and open-ness to all different types of people and walks of life. I was surprised that such blatantly racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic things were being done at a place like Oberlin.

I think these incidents are just more examples of how racism still exists today even though the Civil Rights Movement is "over" (I actually blogged about this topic a few weeks ago). Even in accepting places like Oberlin, where you would least expect it, people are still writing things like "whites only" above bathrooms.

I recommend that you take a look at the Oberlin Microagressions blog for more information and examples of marginalization at the college: http://obiemicroagressions.tumblr.com

The Oscars and Body Image

While I was watching the Oscars on Sunday night with my family and family friends, there was one specific thing that stuck out to me. Many times, when a celebrity walked up to the stage, someone in the room would comment about the way they look (almost always their weight). For example, when Catherine Zeta Jones was performing a song from the musical "Chicago”, someone commented, "she's put on some weight." I have never really been interested in celebrities' lives, so I was surprised at how one could keep track of the slight changes in the actresses' weights. Besides, even people are really into celebrities, what is it they are paying attention to? It made me wonder what really makes people love the celebrities they do. Many of my friends have said that they like certain actors or actresses because they are pretty or cute. I think this intense focus on appearances of famous people influences the way we believe people "should" look. When all the attention is put on how much people weigh or how young they look (among other things), it takes away from the original point of the Oscars, which is to award actors and actresses for their great performances. This is not to say that celebrities should not want to look nice for the event, but I think the viewers need to remember that actors and actresses are human --they gain weight and get wrinkles too.

Catherine Zeta Jones performing "All That Jazz" from Chicago

Anne Hathaway

Is the civil rights movement still happening today?

Yesterday I was flipping through TV channels and I saw that the History Channel was playing a program called "Stories From the Road to Freedom" which was a documentary about the civil rights movement. Although I only watched about ten minutes, I found it interesting because it related directly to what we have been learning about in class. The program reiterated what we have been discussing-- that 80% of southern African Americans migrated to the North, many to escape the violence caused by racism in the Deep South. The narrator mentioned that people who migrated out of the south did not really have a choice of where they moved to. Most people just got on a train, and if that train was headed to Chicago or Detroit, then Chicago or Detroit it was.
Additionally, all was not well just because people moved up north. African Americans unfortunately still faced racism even out of the south. One man quoted, "a black man is a black man no matter where he is." I think that there tends to be stereotypes that we grow accustomed to, like learning that the south is the racist part of the country and the north is not. While most of the violent acts against African Americans occurred in the south, the north was not completely innocent (even today). For example, Chicago is still one of the most segregated city in the country. I have more facts about Chicago's diversity in an older blog post (linked here). I am bringing up these contemporary facts because when we learn about the Civil rights movement in school, it seems like the story ends when the unit does. Many people believe that even though the C60s are over, our country is no longer segregated.

Literacy tests and Standardized tests

For a project for American studies on the Reconstruction period, my group learned that African Americans were forced to take literacy tests to be eligible for voting. African Americans were given the right to vote with the fifteenth amendment. However many people still couldn't vote, even with this new right. The literacy tests were extremely difficult, and were actually used as a mechanism to stop black people from voting. In class we were given a literacy test from the 1960s, and only one student out of 50 was able to pass. I found this interesting because it was advertised as a literacy test, and I would say everyone at Nw Trier is literate, but we could not answer these questions.

These literacy tests reminded me of the standardized tests that students take to get into college, like the ACT and SAT. Some people are not as good of test takers so they get lower scores, but that does not make them unintelligent. I took a prep class to practice for the ACT, and I was able to get a score that I wanted. However, many people do not have the means to take these classes or the general education that would prepare them for these tests. As a result, they may not be able to go to schools that are higher ranking. I do not think this is fair because a standardized test does not tell anything about the type of learner someone is or whether they would be successful at a certain school. On the other hand, someone who gets a very high score might not have the highest IQ. What do you think should be done about standardized tests? Should they be removed or should there be some type of replacement?

Differing Interpretations--Final Exam

My Artifact:

“Aibileen,” Hilly continued, “how do you like your new bathroom out there? It’s nice to have a place of your own, isn’t it?”

Aibileen stared at the crack in the dining table. “Yes ma’am.”
“You know, Mister Holbrook arranged for that bathroom, Aibileen. Sent the boys over and the equipment, too.”
“Yes ma’am.” Aibileen opened a drawer and reached inside, but Hilly kept looking at her. It was so obvious what she wanted.
Another second passed with no one moving. Hilly cleared her throat and finally Aibileen lowered her head. “Thank you, ma’am,” she whispered. She walked back into the kitchen.

--The Help by Kathryn Stockett, page 129


This is a passage from Kathryn Stockett’s novel The Help. The employers of Aibileen, a black maid, had a separate bathroom built outside the house for her, because it was considered “unsanitary” to share a bathroom with a colored maid. In the passage, Hilly, another white woman, is trying to get Aibileen to thank her for convincing her employers to build the bathroom. The situation is humiliating for Aibileen, who seems to be avoiding saying “thank you ma’am” and instead keeping responding with “yes ma’am.” Hilly eventually forces Aibileen to surrender her pride, as seen when she lowers her head and whispers “thank you ma’am.” Although Hilly saw this conversation as a way to show her control over Aibileen and the other maids, Aibileen saw it as utterly humiliating. This passage is an important contemporary artifact because it illustrates how events surrounding African American civil rights have been interpreted differently by various people.

During the era of American slavery, the character Sambo, or “Sammy Boy” was created to convince the public that slavery was not so bad. Sambo was the happy, ignorant slave who was grateful to have his master. In reality, this was just a way to defend the institution of slavery. Real slaves’ attitudes were nothing like Sambo’s. Just like slave owners wanted to believe their slaves were happily obedient to them, Hilly wanted the satisfaction of Aibileen thanking her. That way, she could justify her treatment to her maids by saying how grateful they were. On the other hand, Aibileen’s hesitation to thank Hilly showed that she was not truly grateful for the colored bathroom.



We talked in class about who was responsible for the emancipation of the slaves. Looking at the picture from Mr. O’Connor’s blog post (shown below), the monument depicts Lincoln showing the slave the way to freedom. I think that the maker of this monument interprets the Emancipation Proclamation as Lincoln bestowing freedom on the slaves, as shown by how he seems to be pointing to the “freedom” in the distance. Similarly, in this passage from The Help¸ it is prevalent that Hilly thinks she is bestowing Aibileen with the seemingly great bathroom. However, it is obvious that Aibileen wants nothing to do with this situation.


Another important detail is that The Help was written in 2009, not the 1960s during the civil rights era. Stockett seems to give the story a redemptive arc that seems to be prevalent in American Stories. The classic storyline, as said by Kurt Vonnegut, is: “Somebody gets into trouble, gets out of it again. It’s not accidental that the line ends up higher than where it began” (Here is a Lesson in Creative Writing). This passage in The Help occurs as a part of the conflict (see diagram below). Aibileen’s humiliation is what causes her to want to assist Skeeter in writing her novel about black maids in Mississippi, which gives Aibileen a voice. In the end, the novel becomes a bestseller; Aibileen leaves her job as a maid, and considers becoming a writer. While this is an empowering story, Kathryn Stockett’s interpretation does not seem realistic. This arc additionally tends to occur in the American story of the Civil rights movement. In the beginning, African Americans were completely segregated. Martin Luther King Jr. comes along, giving his “I Have a Dream” speech, and people march in protest to end segregation. While my telling of this story is extremely simplified, it is similar to how we first learned it in elementary school. Similar to the story of The Help, this Civil Rights story is inspiring. However, is this how the Civil Rights Movement actually occurred? Looking at the facts, Chicago is known as the most segregated city in America. Just because we tend to give our stories this narrative arc does not necessarily mean they are realistic. Although not as bad as it once was, racism still occurs in America, regardless of the fact that people interpret the Civil Rights Movement to have the redemptive arc.

Sambo:

Picture From "Proclaiming Emancipation" by Mr. O'Connor

Redemptive Arc from Vonnegut's "Here is a Lesson in Creative Writing"

Token Minority Characters

Yesterday in my American Studies class, we briefly discussed the movie Lincoln and the role of  the African Americans. I have not seen the movie yet, but according to my classmates the only dialogue that was spoken by African American actors was in the first few minutes of the movie. I thought it was interesting how the film is about the act which freed the slaves, but the people who are being freed barely have any dialogue.

Although I don't know if the directors of the Lincoln movie were purposefully discriminating, this discussion reminded me of tokenism. Tokenism is the act of hiring one minority worker in order to have the image of being racially diverse. This is very prevalent in the media today. The first example that I thought of is the TV show Glee. The minorities in the cast consist of one black girl, one Latina girl, one disabled boy, and one Asian couple. The rest of the cast is all white. Another example lies in my classmate Lauren's blog post. She talks about diversity in Disney princess movies. I think it is no coincidence that the movies starring minority characters are the more recent ones.

This poses the question: why do directors and film makers cast the people they do for their
characters? Also, why are certain characters created? Was Mercedes' role on Glee or the rumored Latina princess (as read from Lauren's blog) created to add stories to the plot, or just simply to attempt to show people that the program is inclusive for all groups?