Rest in Peace

The Single 'Greatest' Factor

A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog post entitled, Prison Industrial Complex . Here is a follow up to the original post that considers a different facet of this issue that is plaguing America.

While scrolling through my Twitter feed, I came upon this promoted tweet by Dr. Boyce Watkins, a Professor from Syracuse University and social commentator that made me stop and think. The Prison Industrial Complex has most commonly been considered for its economic and social impacts, however the issue of the disruption of family life that Watkins brings up really changes the playing field.

Factors may be numerous, far and wide, but for Watkins to call something 'the single greatest factor' of the destruction of the black family [structure] over the last four decades is powerful. This statement definitely has the evidence to back it up: there are more African American men in prison today than there were enslaved in 1850. All of these men are now locked up away from their families. Now, one can assume that these men are a danger to society, because they are in prison for a reason, however I beg to differ. The numbers of petty crime offenses such as illegal substance possession and shoplifting incidents that have resulted in jail sentences is egregious (Federal Bureau of Prisons website). Murder crimes and the like are worthy of at least jail time, but to imprison someone for a petty crime (especially one that is most common among African Americans) could be classified as downright racist. These men deserve to be back home with their families. I know this is a slightly naive approach to this issue, but I believe there has got to be a better solution than locking petty crime 'criminals' up for undefined periods of time. What do you think?

Shift in Emphasis and Priorities

As the end of the school year approaches Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has announced that he plans to shut down 54 CPS schools due to the lacking quality in education (as measured by public standardized testing results) and the depleted amount of funding for the schools' budgets. Unfortunately, news of potential CPS school closings and 'turnaround schools' is nothing new for Chicagoans. However, just this week Mayor Emanuel announced what he planned to do with the $55 million in tax money saved from the school's closings: build a hotel and a basketball arena on the near-south side for a private university.

Mayor Emanuel at the Proposed Site
via the Chicago Reader

This private university, DePaul, is a Catholic institution with tuition costing more than $30,000 a year for undergraduates: a long shot for the average Chicagoan. Mayor Emanuel plans to purchase land at the intersection of Cermak and Prairie through a program called TIF--Tax Increment Financing-- which according to the City of Chicago's website is a "special funding tool used to promote public and private investment across the city" by focusing on infrastructure and "putting vacant properties back to productive use, usually in conjunction with private development projects". Clearly, this is used by Chicago politicals because it is 'special' (not just your ordinary magic money making machine) and gives them the power to intervene in projects that look the most advantageous and profitable on the surface.

The construction of the DePaul complex is one example of turning vacant property into a place for productive use. According to Ben Joravsky of the Chicago Reader, the TIF program actually "lets the mayor take property tax dollars from the schools, parks, and county in order to invest the money in projects that he hopes will someday generate even more property tax dollars" despite the real truth that this land is publicly held and exempt from taxes (Rahm's latest plan: Close the schools, build an arena). Although this article had the biased tone from an outraged Chicagoan, I think Joravsky is correct in his take on the Mayor being able to 'take property tax dollars' at his choosing from projects that would seem to be more beneficial than a private sports arena  for a team that unlike a public park, most residents do not have access to.

This brings up the point, as Joravsky puts it, "Of course, as broke as we are, there's still $55 million lying around to buy up some land and hand it over to private entities that don't need it". How can this be representative of the larger theme of the increasing gap between the rich and poor? The private rich corporations are getting monetary perks and loopholes while the poor residents get their public schools and parks taken away. To what extent has politics become a means of achieving favorable conditions for investors, lobbyists and privately-owned companies? How does this demonstrate a shift in the priorities of a city with educational needs to a place with corporate interests?

Token Cities

 

It is fairly common knowledge that in order to garner a larger audience, network television shows expand the diversity of their cast to feature characters of different races and abilities. These 'tokens' can also be in other form: uncommon cities. Some American cities can be considered 'tokens' as well.

Today, the majority of television shows take place in either New York City or Los Angeles. According to Paul Audley, the president of FilmL.A the two cities "are concerned about the competition” (Bilefsky, NY Times). Despite the fact that the two cities are feeling the need to outdo each other to compete for revenue, this is only the case there. The real truth is that there are almost no tv shows set anywhere else in the country.

The FOX network drama-musical-comedy, Glee, can be considered an example of this. Not only does the cast feature high school students of multiple races including one who is disabled in a wheelchair, it also takes place in Lima, Ohio: a 'token' in more ways than one. On the surface, the show is may not seem like the glamorous, urban locations of New York City and Los Angeles like most other shows, but it is actually filmed at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, California. I guess this show is more of an anomaly among network television today on the surface, but really just the same as all the others deep down.

What do you think this says about our society's affinity for urbanization? How is that what is shown on tv is translated to the public? How must foreigners view America by only seeing such a small sampling of American cities and people?

Chicago and the Great Gatsby

Fitzgerald and King

In the wake of the premiere of the new, star-studded 'Gatsby' film based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'roaring twenties' novel, critics re-earthing the facts of the author's private life and how it parallels to the plot of the story.

The themes of 'Gatsby': wealth, arrogance, ostentatious egoism and 'unsustainable greed and a lack of morality' were clearly close to Fitzgerald's heart as he wrote an entire novel satirizing them. In this week's Chicago Tribune, Christopher Borrelli examines Fitzgerald's life as a young adult by way of his ledger in an article entitled, 'Real Daisy Bloomed on Chicago's North Shore'. From brief entries such as:

January 1915: 'Met Ginerva'

June 1915: 'Nobody home and midnight frolic with Ginerva'  

and finally,

June 1917: 'Ginerva engaged?'

These entries describe the two-year period of courting the once 19-year old Fitzgerald and then 16-year old Ginerva King experienced. According to Borrelli, King was a "Lake Forest debutante who spurned Fitzgerald, a poor college student at the time, and married into a wealthy Chicago family". This almost completely echoes the story of the fictitious Daisy Buchanan, the woman that the rags to riches Jay Gatsby fell for young. Like Ginerva, Daisy married Tom Buchanan, a wealthy, close-minded polo-playing man. Could it be that Fitzgerald first admired and aspired to the rich, but found himself jilted and upset when he proved not good enough to live among them?

I wonder why after all of these years and multiple film adaptations, the American public is still fascinated with this unlikely and sad love story. How it is that public admires Gatsby's attempt to disprove the nostalgia that Fitzgerald received himself from a Lake Forester, "Poor boys shouldn't think of marrying rich girls" (Correlli)? How does this make Gatsby out as a hero or just a lovesick idealist? Why does this of defying the odds play so well in American culture even to this day?

No Rich Child Left Behind

via the Los Angeles County
Office of Education

While the idea of standardized testing and the gap between the rich and poor may not seem to have any connection besides the fact that they are both rising, they do correlate in an uncanny way: they can be used to assess the widespread effect of one another in America.

It is fairly common knowledge that kids from a higher income background tend to have higher GPAs and perform better on standardized tests than kids from lower income households. However, it is lesser known that there is actually a more substantial discrepancy of educational success between social classes than between that of different races. According to Professor Sean F. Reardon of Stanford University in an article for The New York Times entitled 'No Rich Child Left Behind', "If we look at the test scores of white students only, we find the same growing gap between high- and low-income children as we see in the population as a whole". Therefore, the American public's test scores in general are fluctuating at the 'same growing gap', regardless of race.

I think the use of standardized testing in testing the rate of the increase in the gap between the rich and poor is a unique idea. Why do you think standardized testing can be applied to assess different socioeconomic thresholds? To learn more about the disparities of education for rich students versus poor, you should check out my classmate, Lily Stein's, blog.

Higher Institutions Under Fire

One of the most stressful things about the end of high school for many American teenagers is the college admission process. In the application process, students must provide a transcript of their GPA, extracurricular activities and for most, standardized test results. However selective a college or university may be, they typically offer admission to those students who fit their academic and student profile of caliber.

A student body profile often provides a glance to the public of what the school is like and how rigorous the curricular is etc. Naturally, the more competitive the college looks, the 'better' is would seem.

In efforts to get ahead and establish a 'good' reputation, many higher institutions have altered the data for the public eye. In a recent article for the Washington Post, Nick Andersen examines how some colleges have misreported data in efforts to skewed rankings (such as those seen in the U.S. News and World Report). According to the article, Bucknell University in Pennsylvania announced that for several years it had reported inflated SAT scores for incoming students and others submitted incorrect test scores or overstated the high school rankings of their incoming freshmen. Andersen argues that these schools have misreported data in efforts to "angle for prestige to stand out in a crowded market [of colleges]". I think the use of the word 'prestige' is key; colleges feel that in order to convince their peers or potential donors for their continued support, they must stretch the truth.

To what extent do you think the altering of test scores affects a university's rankings? I wonder if there should be legislation enacted to deter public higher institutions from inflating class ranks or other aspects of their student body profile in the future.

Tests Scores and Affirmative Action

As time presses on, it seems that the number of standardized tests is increasing in America. While data for the rise of standardized tests is available because of government legislation ordering more examinations in public schools can be attributed to recent efforts such as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in public schools, I wonder why tests that are administered by private companies like the ACT and the SAT are also increasing. Is it solely to increase profit or for another reason?

In an article from the March 17th New York Times, David Leonhardt writes that "only 34% of high-achieving high school seniors in the bottom fourth of income distribution attended any one of the country’s 238 most selective colleges". I find this especially interesting since almost 1/3 of 'high-achieving' hard working students cannot get into more selective institutions because I previously thought initiatives such as affirmative action highly encouraged colleges to accept a more diverse group of students.

However, the study published in the same article as above, the Hoxby-Avery economist paper, is clear to point out that low income does not imply the student is a minority.

It is common knowledge that many factors go into the college admission process; grades, extracurricular activities, and for some the all important test scores. One student cited by Leonhardt, Winona Leon, a sophomore at USC said that in her small town in Texas, "AP classes and SAT preparation were rare. It was really on ourselves to create those resources". There is definitely a correlation between the range of test scores and the amount of preparation taken. When preparation is 'rare' and the students are basically going into these high-stakes tests cold, the scores are not expected to be selective college quality. Given this, how is it fathomable for top colleges to increase the percentage of students from all backgrounds of income and race? Why is the relationship between private standardized test companies and affirmative action in college becoming more close-knit?

Murders and TV

According to the United States Department of Labor, the average American watches about 21 hours of television a week. Surely it is not just lack of anything better to do that people tune in everyday: it truly the enticing nature of the programming that attracts people to the screen.

In Thursday's Chicago Tribune, there was an article that discusses one idea of trying to combat homicides in Chicago: by making television shows about them. This weekend on a show called 'Crime Stoppers Case Files: Chicago', the Chicago police hopes to gain more evidence about a 21 year old cold case of a young mother stabbed on to death in her home in front of her then 4 year old son.

Police Commander Jay Parrott of the Evanston Police Department hopes that shows like this can spread awareness about the issue. He says, "It's a cold case, but it's not so old that people are not going to remember it. Hopefully we can make some developments on this." I wonder to what extent the show will come across as a hybrid between crime show like CSI and a reality tv program. When the officer said that the case 'not so old', I wonder if that crosses a line between still classified evidence and familial privacy.

Shows similar to this have aired before; it reminds me of '24 Hour Murder Mystery' or even ones about prison lockups. What do you think of this idea of a program? How successful do you think it will be for providing 'more developments' as the officer said?

#newpope

via CS Monitor

Earlier this week, the world was hit with big news: the Catholic Church/the Vatican elected a new pope: Pope Francis I. This story was especially unique because he was elected after the previous pope, Pope Benedict XVI, resigned due to unclassified reasons, most likely his old age (age 85) or health problems.

For all of these reasons, the news was very intriguing. In this day and age of technology, anything can be put in multiple forms of Internet-based multimedia with an audience of literally every person on the planet. 

Suddenly for what I think is first in their history, the news of a religious group picking their new leader went not only viral, but incited such a reaction that many news sources reported a website crash due to the number of people trying to access the information at the same time. I was checking www.msn.com for a Chicago Bulls game score, and instead at the top of the site read a flashing red banner: BREAKING NEWS: WHITE SMOKE EMITTED FROM COLLEGE OF CARDINALS. IDENTITY TO BE ANNOUNCED SOON. After what seemed like days of 'black smoke' (a failed consensus to decide the papacy), the world media was literally chomping at the bit to get their story: tv news networks had experts onsite in Rome weighing in, newspaper articles sprouted out of everywhere, bloggers were abuzz, the hashtag '#newpope' had over 12,000 photos uploaded in the span of a couple of hours, and even gamblers in Las Vegas were taking bets on the odds of the new pope's identity.

The truth of the matter is that (at least in America), a lot of news serves solely as a means of entertainment. Stories come and go without much significance because all their after is a constant stream of it. In this particular case, the new pope's identity had not even been released and the horses were out the gates with opinions in their minds and pens in their hands. Just prior to writing this post, I checked the same website, www.msn.com , to see what came up and found no stories about the Vatican or Pope Francis I within the eight headlines or front page. To what extent is all media just entertainment? How will it affect reporting and news in the future?

Prison Industrial Complex

AP Images

Last week, I posted a blog on Prison Incarcerations: By the Numbers. Here is a follow-up on the same theme. In today's Chicago Sun Times, an opinion piece entitled Longer prison time won’t make city safer by John Maki also touched on this issue (to read the article, click the attached blue link above). Maki is the executive director of the John Howard Association,  a 'prison watchdog group'.

The opinion piece dealt with the consistent problem that is gun violence in Chicago and what Mayor Rahm Emanuel plans to do to combat it. One of the proposed ideas presented in the piece is the lengthening of prison sentences in hopes of "deter[ing] people from unlawfully carrying guns and using them in shootings," While the author, Maki, completely disagrees with the idea because it is 'unlikely' to succeed, I do not completely disagree with Emanuel's proposed legislation. Maybe the harsher the consequence, the less likely someone is from breaking the law and the more they will be 'deterred' from 'unlawful' actions.

This directly connects to the topics discussed in my previous blog. According to the same article, the increasing of "long-term consequences" would "overwhelm the ever increasing Illinois prison population". The 'ever increasing' prison population is really a testament of a larger idea often referred today as the "Prison Industrial Complex". Taking offenders off the streets for 'a few extra years' really wouldn't make much of a difference because the prisons are already too crowded for their maximum intended capacity. According to Maki, one prison has "49,000 inmates in a system designed for 33,000".  The over-population of this prison presents a larger issue I am trying to get at: Why it is that the prison population keeps going up yet the amount of violence is remaining constant, if not increasing? Emanuel's legislation should attempt to make this connection an inverse, where one goes up and the other goes down and not a direct, where both steadily increase. How do you think Emanuel should combat gun violence and over-crowded prisons?

Prison Incarceration: By the Numbers

Prison populations have been ever rising. Some have called certain time periods a 'prison boom'. The term, "Prison Industrial Complex"  is used because the number of people behind bars has continually increased at an alarming rate.  Could there also be a level of racism in our Judicial system that is contributing to the rise? At first, I didn't want to believe it, but after a quick look at the numbers, it seems plausible. While prisons are definitely necessary, if one looks critically enough, they can see there are certain troublesome trends.

The U.S. Department of Justice's Federal Bureau of Prisons website offers many interesting statistics to the public. Certain statistics include Inmate Breakdown, Sentence Imposed, Types of Offenses and Staff Breakdown. I found the most interesting information to be that of the Inmate Population: when classified by race, 129,682 (59.5 %) of the people behind bars in 2013 are Caucasian, while 80,811 (37.1 %) are African American. This is especially interesting because African Americans only make up about 13.1% of the population according to a 2012 US Census estimate. I wonder why these numbers are so drastically different. Also, when looking at the Staff Breakdown from the same site, it says that 63.7% of the workers are Caucasian. To me, it seems like slavery all over again in a sense: Caucasian people supervising the time of African Americans. While this is not as widespread as it was in the pre-Civil War American South, there is a slight stark comparison.

What do you think about prison incarcerations by the numbers? How do you think the trends of prison populations and staff will differ in the future?

Slavery and Homework

Today, educators across America are looking for ways to integrate studies of different subjects together. A recent Chicago Tribune article provided an example of one way not to do it.

In New York City, a fourth grade teacher attempted to combine what her students had been learning about in math in conjunction with their study of slavery. While the idea might seem like a unique way to get students to think, it turned into what I think a big mistake. One of the problems on the worksheet, entitled Slavery Word Problems, was, "In a slave ship, there can be 3,799 slaves. One day, the slaves took over the ship. 1,897 are dead. How many slaves are alive?" The problem may be stated in simple English, however given how sensitive the issue is, I think the teacher made the wrong decision to incorporate the two subjects. With wording such as 'alive' it makes the student consider the buying and selling of people as product and property, almost like cattle or clothing.

The desensitizing of the whole realm of slavery is most alarming to me because of the fact that slavery was outlawed almost 150 years ago. Another problem on the sheet said, "One slave got whipped five times a day. How many times did he get whipped in a month (31 days)? Another slave got whipped nine times a day. How many times did he get whipped in a month? How many times did the two slaves get whipped together in one month?" This is a grotesque example of how slavery as a Peculiar Institution has been accepted into society. 'Daily whippings' are in the same format as any other word problem like apples picked or cars washed.  The given information, like in any word problem, is assumed as factual and correct. I think it is wrong that the students are forced to believe that the horrors and abuse of slavery are known and believed as a simple truth.

What do you think this proves about American society? To what extent should the teacher be punished? How widespread do you think this issue is across the country and world? What can we do in the future to get these ideas stopped without infringing on teachers' rights?

Lights, Camera, Error: Lincoln

With the Academy Awards coming up, there are many movies in contention for the Best Picture Oscar. The competition has become fierce. One of the top contenders, Lincoln, based on the life of America's sixteenth president, Abraham Lincoln, has been considered a front runner by film critics all over the world.

With Awards Night less than two weeks away, just now historians across the country are beginning to question the authenticity of the film. While the film focuses on the last few years of the Civil War, Lincoln's second term and his eventual success at attempting to pass the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery, on February 5th, Rep. Joe Courtney from Connecticut said that the film "misrepresented the way his predecessors in the 1865 House of Representatives voted on the 13th Amendment banning slavery". According to Courtney, all four Connecticut representatives voted for the amendment, however the movie depicts two voting against it. I think he interpreted the 'misrepresentation' of the voting results as a negative reflection of the state's history. If a state barely agreed that slavery should be outlawed, it casts them in a bad light today because now there is almost an absolute agreement that it was wrong. He later he asked DreamWorks (the film's production company) for some form of correction because, according to CNN's Gene Seymour, he "merely wants props restored to his home state" and isn't out to "ruin anybody's chances [at winning an award]". I agree that the facts should be set straight, however I find it curious that despite the fact that the movie premiered to the public on October 8th, the error is just being brought up. To what extent does the Oscars being right around the corner have to do with it? Probably at least something.

I wonder worthy if this case is of a challenge. What do you think is more important: the authenticity of the film's historical account or the film's right to thematic artistic license? Do you think this was done on purpose or just because of a lack of research? The film did take a long time to be made and surely it had been thoroughly researched beforehand.

Do Clothes Really Make the Man?

via Faded and Blurred

In an age where commercialism and marketability are key in the fashion world, I always wondered if the old, familiar saying, 'clothes make the man' still holds true today.


I was looking on the Internet and came across a series of photographs by the German photographer, Herlinde Koelbl, from a recent collection of the past year. The project, entitled Kleider Machen Leute,-‘Clothes Make The Man’ in German- explores how people are perceived based on the clothes they wear or the uniform they don for eight hours a day, five days a week, in the average profession's case.

In the first side-by-side, a man is photographed in his work clothes (priest) and in his everyday clothes. When I first see him in his regal red robes and red biretta hat, I think of a person of not only stature, but also one of discipline, strong faith and a dedication to tradition. When pictured on the right, I think if I were to ever see this man on the street I would not look twice at him in his track jacket and running shoes. I wonder if clergyman desire to fit in on the street and struggle with having two personas all their life.

via Faded and Blurred

In the second side by side, a military man is the subject. Similarly to the first set, when I first see this man in his uniform, I think of someone who has a brave and courageous persona, especially since he is clearly displaying his medals and honor pins. However when the man is dressed down and in more comfortable and relaxing clothing, I assume right away that he serves in military man at all. To me, he seems just like a cultured and calm man on the town.

What do you think about the saying, 'clothes make the man'? How do you think clothing affects what a person thinks of themselves?

How Much Time Has REALLY Passed?

The terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 happened almost twelve years ago. Thousands of people lost everything: their health, property or in some cases, their lives. The nation was forced to start again, pick up the pieces and move on.

For Americans on the East Coast, conservative estimates of economic losses were close to 2 billion dollars, according to the recent New York Times article, 9/11 Health Fund Pays Out Its First 15 Awards. The article details how federal plans of health care and financial compensation are finally being put into place and the first fifteen financial compensation awards for first responders were issued. This program for 'victims' is tax-free and ranges from $10,000 to $1.5 million per individual case. I think this compensation fund is a good idea, however I find it astonishing that it took so long to materialize, considering how prominent it has been in the national media and its role in the United States' foreign policy in the past decade. According to Sheila Birnbaum, the special master of the fund, one reason for the "glacial pace" of the progress was the gradual speed of which all of the paperwork has been filled out by the victims. She also cited the fact that in late 2010, Congress approved the $2.8 billion compensation fund, along with a $1.5 billion fund for health monitoring and treatment. Do you think she is placing blame on others rather the program itself? The program also fails to cover costs for serious illnesses such as cancer because of "a lack of evidence tying Sept. 11 to cancer". Is it a lack of evidence or just a lack of trying?

I think it is startling that the fund does not cover cancer, which is one of the most expensive ailments and probably one of the most likely things people would seek compensation for. In the same article, Ms. Birnbaum said, “The type of illness is not important. What is important is your economic loss.” Her use of the words, 'not important' seem to me like an apathetic approach to a potentially depressing issue. To what extent do you think the fund was set up as a program in name only? Should the Victim Compensation Fund evaluate at each case individually based on the severity of the ailment or solely the 'economic loss'? Please leave your comments below.

American Mythology and the Truth: A Contradiction

The Typical Portrait of Dr. King

In honor of the past holiday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I was reading an interesting blog post on An American Studies, that caused me to rethink and reexamine what I really thought and knew about the man and the myth behind the memorial day. Why is Dr. King so remembered as one of the most prominent civil rights leaders in American history? Why do they take off school? Why is he immortalized on an annual day of service? The post details a lesser-known speech of King's entitled, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam, on the grounds of world peace.

Prior to this speech, I was unaware that Dr. King publicly expressed major viewpoints concerning issues besides civil rights. Concerning this issue, I think it really touches on the fine line between storytelling and American mythology: how WE as Americans want our story to be told, remembered and viewed. I think in the past, American mythology views Dr. King as solely a freedom fighter of the 1960's on a mission for change and equal rights for African Americans.

The Real Story of Dr. King,
Not as Perfect as Described

Along the same lines, I think the reason that Dr. King chose to give a speech about the Vietnam War is that there is a direct correlation between the conflict over seas and the civil rights issues on America's home front. In this particular speech, Dr. King said 'when silence becomes betrayal' is definitely applicable to both issues. Silence, the act of not speaking up, held back the Civil Rights Movement in America and even kept unjust, classified information such as the Myilai Massacre of Vietnam under wraps for so long. I think he also used betrayal to say that if one doesn't voice their honest opinions about an issue, than they are directly hurting others and themselves. Dr. King was clearly a more complex man than American mythology characterizes him as.

The typical American mythological portrait of Dr. King presents him as a determined, almost divine figure that could do no wrong; this is the story we want to believe. In the picture seen to the above left, Dr. King is waving to an adoring crowd of thousands after one of his powerful speeches. In his non-violent protests, Dr. King actually achieved celebrity status for spending a significant amount of time in jail (arrested five times) after participating in events such as a 1960 Atlanta lunch counter sit-in and 1965 Selma, AL  voting rights demonstration. To what extent do you think this a fair way to become a famous face on the national media?

Why do you think MLK is remembered as only a civil rights activist? What element of American ideals plays on this level of thought?

Generation to Generation: African Americans- The Perpetual Search for Accepted Identity or Servile Socioeconomic Standard?: Final Exam

President Obama in Rosa Parks' iconic Montgomery, AL bus
on the 57th Anniversary of the event via the White House Twitter
December 2nd, 2012

"Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and hopefully, we shall overcome," said the late, great civil rights activist, Rosa Parks (emphasis added). On December 1st, 1955, Parks took a stand against prejudice versus African Americans by sitting in a seat on a public transit bus that was originally designated for whites only. Parks, like many before her, hoped that by her actions, the future could be fairer for people of her race and there would be more opportunities accessible. The photo of President Obama sitting on the Rosa Parks bus on the 57th anniversary is a significant artifact in American History because it demonstrates that despite their previous bondage, the perpetual search of African Americans for an equal voices continues to this day in hopes of making the future more just.

Sojourner Truth

In the image above, President Obama, the first black President, is sitting on the iconic bus, which was one of the first symbols/ attempts of African Americans at equal rights. He is posed in the same position as Parks was, hands clasped together on lap, looking out the window to the viewer's right side. I interpret the direction of his face, with a determined expression, as thinking about looking forward to the future, where hopefully, based on Parks' own words, it will be fairer. The photographer took the image of Obama sitting alone on the bus to make sure he was the main subject and focal point. Also, I think the image displays how while the US has gone very far, there is still room to grow in the future.

Speaking of women in the plight of African American freedom, one of the first was Sojourner Truth. Truth, a slave turned abolitionist, had herself professionally photographed in what was called a 'carte-de-visite' in the 1860's. In the daguerreotype print, Truth is shown dressed well and as a 'free woman in control of her own image'. On some of Truth 'carte-de-visites' her quote, "I sell the shadow to support the substance," is printed. I interpreted the shadow as being slavery and the substance as the abolition of slavery. She is pictured with her arms flexed at her sides and defiant for equal rights. In comparison to the image of Obama, while she is not looking to the right, like Obama was, Truth is looking straight at the camera, which was a big step for the time, considering how blacks were usually photographed looking up, down or away, as if unimportant and unfocused. In this image, Truth is pointing to a portrait of her grandson, who served in the Union army. I think that Truth wants to say that black soldiers are a good first step, but what does the future of possibilities hold?

The image of Obama above presents him in a public transit bus. Transportation is often used as a metaphor for moving forward, getting somewhere and accomplishing a goal. The 20th century play, Jitney, by August Wilson, takes place in a black jitney cab station. The boss, Becker talks to his son, Booster, about the plight of wanting the next generation to be more successful than the previous, "I tried to fix it so you didn't have to follow up behind me, so you could go on and go further. So you have a better life. I did without so you could have," (44). The previous generation sometimes has to make sacrifices and do 'without' so that the next could help the cause, similar to how Rosa Parks had to be arrested in order for people like Obama to be able to become President.  

Parents want what is best for their children. The famous ballet choreographer, Bill T. Jones, described in a podcast about how his father, "completely out of work and broken" had a very insignificant job in a factory far away and "was a poor black man with no car, and no picked him up." In the analogy of transportation as a means of moving forward, no one helped Jones' father reach his metaphorical goal of providing for his family, and giving his children hope. This has happened in the past many times for African Americans. The rich people at the times of Jones' childhood (about the 1960's) were predominantly white, and probably owned more cars than black people did. Sometimes African Americans have to fight the system alone, because at the end of the day, Jones' father did make it to work, on foot, which made the accomplishment all the more meaningful.

President Obama, in his book, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Racism and Inheritance, said that "my identity might begin with the fact of my race, but it didn't, couldn't end there." African Americans are Americans after all, and deserve to be given the same rights as anyone else in the United States. While there is still more work to be done, the efforts of figures like Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, August Wilson, Bill T. Jones, and President Obama have proudly shown what it means to not only be American, but to inspire others races as well in the next generation and beyond.

Faces of the Fallen

A soldier's funeral via
the Washington Post

As another year comes to a close, the United States Armed Forces issues its yearly report of casualty reports and statistics. Along with a letter from the President, Barack Obama, and a coffin with an American flag draped over it, the family of loved ones and the country gets little other information. I wonder if the government and its defense branch wants to paint the loss of armed forces in a certain way that makes it favorable to them.

In a recent Washington Post article entitled, Faces of the Fallen, there was a montage of images of all of those who lost their lives this year in combat. Below the images is a chart and table depicting many forms of data, such as location, age, home state and cause of death and casualty trends throughout the ongoing War on Terror. While I think having this information open to public is a good thing, some of the information is kind of vague, which leads me to believe that either the information is classified or deemed too gruesome for the public to know. For example, in the cause of death category, the sections are hostile death, IED, non-combat, helicopter accident, vehicle accident, unknown, other-unknown and airplane crash. I don't know about you, but these categories seem pretty elusive to me. Just what is the difference between 'unknown' and 'other-unknown'? I find it hard to believe that all 305 servicepeople (2012) and all 6630 throughout the conflict deaths can be defined in eight categories (Washington Post).

Below is an example of one of the entries. This issue is very delicate, and if I were a family member of a loved one who 'died while supporting combat operations' I would like to know a little bit more about his/her final days.

Cpl. Richard A. Rivera Jr.

• Age: 20
• Sex: M
• Hometown: Ventura, Calif.
• Branch: Marines
• Unit: 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force

Incident

• Aug 10th, 2012: Died while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.
• Location: Helmand, Afghanistan

Do you think the military provides enough information in its casualty reports? How could they improve the report for the next year? To what extent do you think the defense department should release classified information?

To find out more about what its like to be a soldier in America, now and throughout American history, you can read two of my past blog posts, linked below.  

• The Court Theatre's Jitney: The Role of Veterans in Society

• 9/11/12- How Americans View Today Differently