Ridiculousnessss

In the novel Twilight, a man named Rudy Salas tells of his story during the LA Riots.  This man was beaten so harshly that he has to now wear a hearing aid because the police men destroyed his eardrums.  This is ridiculous! What kind of police action is this? Oh I know because the man was a “minority”?? What is minority anyways?? Everyone who is not blonde haired and blue eyed?? And to think this is still happening today, everyday!

We also read, an interview with Sergeant Duke who speaks of how his officer Powell did not know how to use the baton correctly?? Sergeant Duke was acquitted on the trial of Rodney King.  Oh cool,  the police men are free to go because they didn’t know howwww to use their baton corrrectly? Wow.That’s just great!

Josie Morales was an actual witness of the beating between Rodney and the grusome officers.  She watched the beating in horror right next to George Holiday (the guy recording the video) and explains how wrong, how cruel the beating was.  The novel really made me think more in depth about how serious being racist, prejudice can really get, and the outcomes of the hate. 

From Twighlight:

After this showing of the tape in the Washington production, Smith

performed the character of Josie Morales, a woman who witnessed King's beating:

I was scheduled to testify/.. .because I had a lot to say/and during

the trial I kept in touch with the/prosecutor,/Terry White,/... I

said,

 "Well, are you going to call me [to the witness stand] or 128 Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism

not? And he says, .. . "I don't think we're going to be using

you—/And I faxed him a letter/and I told him that those officers

were going to be acquitted/and one by one I explained these

things to him in this letter/and I told him, "If you do not put

witnesses/if you don't put one resident and testify to say what

they saw,"/And I told him in the letter/that those officers were

going to be acquitted./But I really believe that he was dead set/

on that video/and that the video would tell all,/but, you see, the

video doesn't show you where those officers went/and assaulted
Rodney King at the beginning

Twighlight LA 1992

Twilight is dedicated to the citizens of LA

Anne Deavere Smith the author/play writer of Twilight  interviewed over 200 people in research of civil disturbances in Los Angeles.  I would enjoy seeing one of her plays live that act out and portray on stage scripts based on her interview material.  April 29, 1992....This is an important day in Los Angeles history! The Watts riots is something I never even heard much about until recently and why?
Watts riots were one of the biggest riots ever recorded!!! & has Los Angeles changed?  Are we still facing racism and prejudice authority? 

 "How has the race canvas changed since the Watts riots?  Los Angeles shows us that the story of race in America is much larger and more complex than a story of black and white. There are new players in the race drama."(Smith, xxi). 

 This relates to everything we have been reading in class.  Tatum writes about the dominants and subordinates and how we portray each other and how subordinates need to be aware because its survival.  In the novel, White Like Me, we see Wise explain how he sees racism and he is a "dominant" figure.  Wise is the privileged one, but he can not sit back and watch this unjust world crumble!  In class, we watched videos about the McDonalds scandal, and Milgrams Experiment about being obedient to authority....is this what is happening?  Are people not applying their self?  Are people ignoring their own thoughts because they are scarred?  What is next???

Rodney Glen King (April 2, 1965 – June 17, 2012)
RK was an African-American construction worker and serial criminal who became nationally known after being beaten by Los Angeles police officers following a high-speed car chase on March 3, 1991. A local witness, George Holliday, videotaped this from his balcony.
The footage shows five officers surrounding King, several of them striking him repeatedly, while other officers stood by. Part of the footage was aired around the world which outrages the public and raised concern about police treatment of minorities.
Four officers were charged with assault with a deadly weapon and use of excessive force. Three were acquitted of all charges. The jury acquitted the fourth of assault with a deadly weapon, but failed to reach a verdict on the use of excessive force. The jury deadlocked at 8-4 in favor of acquittal.
The acquittals are generally considered to have triggered the1992 Watts Riots, in which 53 people were killed and over two thousand were injured, ending only when the military were called in. The case was then re-tried by a Federal grand jury. The trial ended on April 16, 1993, with two of the officers found guilty and subsequently imprisoned. The other two were acquitted.

http://youtu.be/SW1ZDIXiuS4

Does this still happen today?  How do we stand up to authority?  What do we do about it when it is out of our hands?  I knew nothing about Rodney King and I had to research him while beginning to read Twilight. 

"Yet more than twenty years later, living conditions for blacks and Latinos in Los Angeles have hardly improved, and Rodney King's beating was only the most visible example of years of police brutality toward people of color." -Introduction in Anna Deavere Smith Twighlight

Are you Prejudice?

What comes to my mind when I think about the Native Americans; my thoughts are that Native Americans were here first.  I cannot on the top of my head give all the facts and dates about when Christopher Columbus came to meet with the Indians and take away their land, but I do remember the Indians and whites having fought for what the Indians had first.  I feel like those children who drew "Indians" with feathers and aggressive character in the reading, "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria" by Beverly Tatum.  Now that I have done some more research about the Native Americans I can come up with some true background about the Native Americans.

From the moment Christopher Columbus stepped off that boat and met with an Indian, I feel as if the Indians were immediately judged, and stripped of respect.  I read that whites thought that the Indians were devil worshipers in their forests.  Indians were so quickly to be stereo typed and misrepresented in just a quick glance.  Whites also labeled them as savages.  I remember watching the Disney movie Pocahontas and the Indians were called savages by the whites.  In the reading, “Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria by Beverly D. Tatum, readers are to challenge themselves and view themselves as prejudice.  Not because we want to be but because we were born in a world so exposed to misinformation about each other that it is almost impossible not to be prejudice.  “The distortion of historical information about people of color leads young people to make assumptions that may go unchallenged for a long time” (Tatum, 5).     This is true and an example of this is the misinformation about Native Americans.  Many of us have misconstrued information about Natives history. 

I for one thought that Native Americans were quite helpless when the Whites came to take over.  I thought they were helpless, naïve, victims, too simple and trusting to ever win against the Whites.  The whites who had guns, and who were a bit further ahead in “technology” I would say; and Indians had no chance. 

But I am completely prejudiced.  I have a misconceived judgment based on limited information!

There was, Alexander McGillivray, a Creek chief, a skilled diplomat. Major Ridge was a committed and talented Cherokee nation builder. Tenskwatawa was a shrewd Shawnee negotiator, skilled at playing competing European powers against one another. Henry Standing Bear was a far-sighted Lakota political organizer. And Wovoka, a charismatic Paiute preacher from western Nevada, inspired a religious-political movement that spread from California to the Dakotas. 

It is sad how little I knew about the Native Americans, and how little I still know about their culture and how history is so different than what I thought about the Native Americans.

I will continue to do more research and enlighten myself about history and the correct information about Native Americans. 

Thoughts on Letting Go

"I continued to my walk and ended up by Porter College, at the meadow where I could see the ocean shining blue and streaked with orange.  I thought about the first time I had seen the ocean in Santa Monica.  I thought about my father holding my hand, about how afraid I had been that he would let go of me. 

I looked at the ocean, and I realized there was no need to be afraid.  I had gotten this far, despite everything.  Now, all I had to do was focus on why I was there- to make my dreams a reality.  I closed my eyes, and I saw myself at the water's edge, holding tightly to my fathers callused hand.

And I let it go. "  (Grande, 318).

This part in the novel, The Distance Between Us, by Reyna Grande caused me to gasp.  The reading caused me to think of things I have had to let go.  In life, I feel like it is one of the hardest challenges in a lot of situations, letting go.  Why?  Or at least, why are things that are bad for us hard to let go? Is it because we get so use to whatever it may be and we can not see it any other way? 
I understand why good things are hard to let go.  It is just hard!!

I have been blessed with beautiful parents.  I have a wonderful, loving mother, and two fathers.  My Papa who is my father, and my Dad who is my step, but I never like using that word with him.  I do remember visiting my papa on vacations because he moved to Arizona.
I really remember each good bye.  I never wanted to say bye, and I would be so dramatic about it each time.  I realize now it is okay to have felt that way.  He was my dad and I loved him.  It was just me and him when I would visit.  He would let me watch scary movies when my mom wouldn't.  We have a very different, and special relationship.  My mother sheltered me maybe too much; my papa would always be honest, and open with me, maybe too much, as well.
Either way, letting go of his hand was so painful; I remember it actually hurting my heart. 
Now that I am older, I am not so attached.  I could only imagine the goodbyes between Grandes mother, and the arrest of her father.
I could also only imagine the feeling of letting that all go, at the edge of the ocean, with the breeze, and sound of the waves crashing, throwing all the pain in the ocean and feeling lighter.
I could only imagine, but I can also remember and reflect within myself.  I can sympathize and emphasize.  Letting go is something I think we all have to deal with one time or another; or maybe even all through out life.  Letting go may be hard be we have to sometimes.

Ness
xo

What Influence Did Grande Have on You?

A Sneak Peak:  A Conversation with Reyna Grande

Question: You write about your experience in being left behind by your parents in Mexico and how it affected you during your formative years. Do you believe this experience helped or hindered you to become the person you are today?

 Answer by Grande: It did both. My experience of being left behind helped me because it made me strong. I learned to be independent and self-reliant. It taught me to be a survivor. But it also hindered me because it left me emotionally scarred. My childhood was dominated by my parents’ absence. As a child I felt unloved. I felt abandoned. That, coupled by the abuse I suffered at the hands of my father later in life, gave me a very low self-esteem. For a long time I didn’t have a sense of self-worth, and it took me a long time to finally start to love myself and stop worrying about whether my parents loved me or not. But this experience also affected my ability to love. I loved my parents unconditionally, and yet the way they constantly failed me affected my relationships with others.

I wonder how lives could go totally different and opposite ways even when raised the same way.  Sisters, Mago and Reyna Grande are two totally different people from almost the same experiences.  As Grande replied it helped her by causing her to learn to survive and be on her own. Although Mago was like her mother while growing up, Reyna Grande, still managed to grow apart from her as Grande began to continue to be more independent. At the same time, they will always be sisters and always understand each other and what they had to undergo.  They both have had to deal with low- self-esteem and feeling worth less. Abandonment issues and being abused the way they were abused I couldn’t even imagine! It is hard enough dealing with insecurities and low- self- esteem in general, now adding to that with real life hardships must be an evil nightmare.  Mago ended up getting pregnant and dropping out of school and Grande ended up becoming a well- known author and a successful college graduate.   Who is to blame Mago for going the route she chose?  Mago I am sure has done well for her self currently; just a different path from Grande.  But who is to blame?  At times, their lives were hard enough to get up every morning.  I am so blessed, and sometimes I forget how blessed I truly am each day.  Mago did the best she could and so did Grande. 

“I wanted to tell her that she was wrong.  It was me who wasn’t worth anything.  Why else would Papi treat me the way he does?  Why else would the guys at school treat me the way they do?” (Grande, 269)

It is so sad that Grande had to grow up with feeling this rejection and it continued as an adult dealing with feeling unloved.  It is really hard for me to imagine because I have been so blessed with loved ones.  Being insecure and beaten down emotionally and physically could have led to so much worse.  Grande was uncomfortable with her own boyfriend Steve.  I would be so confused between what love truly means.  I would feel so low about myself because of my father beating me, and mother abandoning me, sister getting pregnant, I would probably only run to Steve to help counter act it all.  Grande made a brave, smart decision of breaking it off with Steve and I admired that a lot.  I admire the strength in Grande and the vision she desperately held onto.  Grande was not letting go of her dream and she wanted her dad to be proud of her so badly; I still don’t understand that.  But, I do at the same time.  She loves her parents and sees through the bad, and only wants them to be proud.  I think she had made more than her parents proud, but everyone that read her novel.  Her influence upon me is not making any more excuses! Hold on to your vision! With every storm comes a rainbow.

“I thought about the vision when the blows came, because the father who beat me, the one who preferred to stay home and drink rather than to attend my band concerts or parent teacher conferences, wasn’t the same father who told me that one day I would be somebody in the country.  That much I knew” (Grande, 251).