OSU English 2367

[nataliemkunce-blog]

AWESOME, WOW is all I have to say about this night (s/o to @helenamarie1 ) (at Richard Rogers Theater NYC - Hamilton)

[nataliemkunce-blog]

Houston 860 loves Christmas almost as much as we love each other!! (at The Ohio State University)

[dracarios]

[nataliemkunce-blog]

“Even as our society has grown more diverse, nearly 7,000 schools have the same racial makeup as the audience at your average Tyler Perry movie.”

John Oliver, “Last Week Tonight” 

In this segment, Oliver zooms in on the way that schools today are still segregated. Surprisingly, the south is the least segregated area in the U.S., while, wait for it, New York City is the worst. Oliver makes fun of NYC residents because I’m sure that they, and everyone, else believed that New York City would have the most liberal school system but that’s not the case. Segregated schools with majority African American students tend to be underfunded and have inexperienced teachers and a lack of college prep courses. As Oliver states “Funding follows white people around like white people follow the band Fish around.”These impoverished schools are lacking so many resources that predominantly white schools are supposedly entitled to. 

[raaandyjo]

But when we are silent We are still afraid So it is better to speak Remembering We were never meant to survive

“A Litany for Survival”- Audre Lorde (via raaandyjo)

Part of being oppressed is being cornered by fear to keep quiet, that mentality keeps the oppressed under oppression. When you decided to speak out no matter the cost, that is when there is an opportunity for change to occur. 

(via tlinexx)

With the current election going on, it’s important to remember this quote. Democracy was invented with the intention that everyone’s voices could be heard. If we remember that in the end, we will all be dead anyway, it takes off the burden of worrying about our beliefs. You need to speak up about your beliefs despite the retribution that may occur.

[nbcsnl]

It’s not Halloween without David Pumpkins. 

[acrawf12-blog]

Many wore T-shirts pro-claiming “I am Mike Brown” and held signs calling for the need to “Indict America.” These demonstrations led social media users to claim that “#Ferguson is everywhere,” emphasizing the connection between online and offline forms of protest.

Bonilla and Rosa, #Ferguson (via acrawf12)

To me, ranting on Twitter isn’t a form of expression it’s just annoying. But it’s interesting how these two professors somehow make it more than just people going off to their followers. 

[mikesklar-blog]

Koritha Mitchell

“There’s no right way to protest your own dehumanization and your community’s destruction, especially when your country insists that there’s nothing violent, uncivilized, and un-American about how it routinely dehumanizes and destroys certain populations.”

I found this point to hit home hard for me. This paragraph is so strong, she says that constantly, people of color are criticized on the way in which they protest. As if there is a “right” and “acceptable” way. I can say that if i were in this position, it would be so defeating. There is not “right” way, and due to the injustice that these racial groups face, they should be able to protest however they want…without anyone saying anything.

[nataliemkunce-blog]

We can kind of connect this paragraph back to a scene in “Selma”; when one of the marchers is scavenging for guns in order to retaliate against the white police force. One of the preachers tells him they can’t do that because if they do then for every one white person they kill, ten black people will also be killed. There’s so much defeat in these characters eyes but they can’t do anything without fear of retribution. Mike is right, there is no “right” way to fight against the injustices put upon the black community. 

[nataliemkunce-blog]

Part of the problem of engaging in hashtag ethnography, then, is that it is difficult to assess the context of social media utterances. Moreover, a simple statement of fact—for example, that there were eight million Ferguson tweets— tells us very little. How many were critical of the police? How many were critical of the protestors? How many were posted by journalists (both professional and amateur)?

Bonilla and Rosa, #Ferguson 

This is interesting to think about. Just because there are eight million tweets about Ferguson or ten million tweets with #blacklivesmatter, we still don’t get the context of those tweets or what kind of sentiment they house 

[nataliemkunce-blog]

Given these American tendencies, when you have black and brown people dying in the streets, whites aren’t encouraged to assess themselves or each other with actual standards. Just being white means they are good people.

Koritha Mitchell, Low Standards For Whites. That’s Whats Killing Us.

This stereotype is frustratingly true. Of course it’s not one hundred percent true, but it can be compared to what John Oliver said about being pulled over in Ferguson; just because he’s white means that there’s a significant less chance of him getting pulled over than say a black man or woman. This sort of racial profiling is unfair and unconstitutional; “All men are created equal” does not ring true necessarily today and it’s interesting to wonder about what our Founding Fathers would have to think about this. 

[myloveholtzy]

“Why are you so obsessed with SNL?”

[nataliemkunce-blog]

What is known though, at this point, that he was later charged with four counts of destruction of city property for bleeding on their uniforms.

John Oliver, “Ferguson, MO” 

I watch John Oliver regularly and I can always count on him to bring up ridiculous facts like the one above. A black man who was arrested is not only assaulted in jail by police officers for no reason, but then charged with destruction of property for bleeding on their uniforms? It almost seems too absurd to be true, but this is the reality that black Americans are facing today. 

[nataliemkunce-blog]

Chasin' this American Dream/ We sweat for a nickel and a dime/ Turn it into an empire

Rihanna, “American Oxygen” 

Although this song may be a little repetitive, the message is no less true: immigrants come from all over the world in order to have a better chance at success and it really seems like America is the place to find it. With the recent election, it’s scary to think about actually putting up border walls in order to keep people out who really just want a chance to better themselves. 

[nataliemkunce-blog]

Sitting there staring at the close garage door you are reminded that a friend once told you there exists the medical term--John Henryism-- for people exposed to stresses stemming from racism. They achieve themselves to death trying to dodge the buildup of erasure. Sherman James, the researcher who came up with the term, claimed the physiological costs were high. You hope by sitting in silence you are bucking the trend.

Claudia Rankine, Citizen 

The ending sentence of this paragraph is very powerful because it’s almost heartbreaking. It seems like for a lot of people silence is never the answer but here Rankine says it is, or so people think it can be. 

[nataliemkunce-blog]

Intimacy is important in my work because I don't understand existence without intimacy. All of us are dependent on other people-- and in ways we don't know. You cross the street and assume that person isn't crazy, they don't want to mow me down with their car. I don't that person but I am already in a relationship with the. I am asking them to abide by traffic laws. If they decided not to, I'd be dead. Even in those anonymous ways, we're in relationships.

Claudia Rankine, Blackness as the Second Person

This quote really stood out to me. The way she takes an everyday, arbitrary occurrence and turns it into something so beautiful and, just as she says, intimate. 

[ronny1009]

Dear White People

Listen up. 

Especially gay white boys. 

You Do Not Have An Inner Black Woman. 

[nataliemkunce-blog]

“MULATTO MULATTO MULATTO!!!”