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Annotations 23-26

Schaffer, Richard and Neil Smith. “The Gentrification of Harlem?” Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 76. 3 (1986) : 347-365 Web. 7 Dec. 2012.

Schaffer and Smith’s essay “The Gentrification of Harlem” explores the relation between the extent effect and cause of gentrification in Harlem around the 1980s, and uses them along with historical description to define the term and its effects on Harlem. He begins this with the words literal definition, and brief background, before going into detail using pictures and statistical data to explain gentrification’s impact. It is important to learn this from the essay if, like me, upon reading Sharifa Rhodes’s Harlem is nowhere, you do not fully understand the concept of gentrification.

Model, Suzanne. “Caribbean Immigrants: A Black Success Story?” International Migration Review.  25. 2 (1991) : 248-276 Web. 7 Dec. 2012.

Model’s article analyses the economic state of Caribbean Immigrants versus African Americans. This meaning is made available by model’s comparison of the social structure surrounding these two groups at the time looking at how they are received by the white demographic and the social economic attitude towards both groups. It is important to read the article in this way because many of the authors from the class selection are Caribbean Immigrants, and part of understanding why certain ideals exist to an author can be aided by knowing a bit of where they would have stood economically and socially.

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Harlem Is Nowhere: A Photo of Harlem

The image of an unvisited place is established from textual histories, stories and media representations that create a picture that is very different from a locations reality. It isn’t until one goes to and physically enters and interacts within a place that they are able to truly see a place as it really is, but even this image cannot on its own completely define a location. Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts’ book “Harlem is Nowhere” reveals that in order to gain a better picture of a place it is necessary to take on the extra steps of research, extended observation, and recording of experiences in order to understand the historical backbone, or foundation of a place that hold up the structure that is its present day counterpart, or in Rhodes’ case Harlem. She presents this depiction though a variety of narrative excerpts from others who have written about or in Harlem, researched text, photos, poems, and recorded stories and interactions between herself and Harlem locals, creating a sort of portfolio of her Harlem experience, and producing a Harlem that is very real in its existence despite its near loss to urban progression. In this way Rhodes is taking a picture, as if to photograph Harlem that, like the photographs she uses, can be a reference of a reality of Harlem. Similar to how a photographer must stand some distance from a target to take a decent shot, I feel that there is a sense of methodic detachment in how Rhodes constructs her observation present from the fact that Rhodes is not completely of Harlem (being from Texas), as much as she is an observant presence within Harlem.

In the chapter “Harlem Dream books” Rhodes’ is back on the subject of her own narrative, and points out her inability to take pictures of people in an attempt to avoid immediate categorization into sociology and political propaganda, getting mostly words on signs. She says “In those days—visiting Harlem to use the library—I made photo expeditions halfway across 125th Street before giving up…” placing the fact of her “visiting” between dashes. In doing this she amplifies her displacement from not being of Harlem, and shows how she’s being specifically selective in taking her picture of Harlem at its base level, her focus being on the physical place without people, who could take away the picture’s focus as they become symbols despite the photos intent. This section of the chapter suggests that she is not trying to depict how life is lived in Harlem with this book, but an image of the state of Harlem in which people had to live. The quote appears in the last paragraph before a narrative shift, as she goes on to talk about other writers’ works, all the while maintaining through transition, the subject of how close one must be in a social context to still obtain the space needed for an unbiased image.

In the following section Rhodes cites an interview by Ralph Ellison in which a railroad porter repeats the phrase “I’m in New York, but New York ain’t in me.” This phrase serves to parallel Rhodes’ near alien presence in Harlem, as she never quite remains permanently in the neighborhood and is more of a commuter browsing for possible residence, or visiting the library. She is in Harlem but Harlem isn’t in her because she’s not from Harlem as a citizen of Harlem, as are some of the neighbors she records interactions with, but is from Harlem as a roamer and observer of Harlem from a more foreign stand point. This allows observation of external experiences versus the experiences in Harlem to even determine a differentiation to begin with, where a local will have a default bias from having no other social norms to compare experiences to. Rhodes acknowledges this distance, repeatedly mentioning she’s from Texas, and notes her obvious differentiation from the locals. Using this space to properly frame the image of Harlem, a suggestion is presented that it is necessary to be able to step back from an image you are describing in order to describe it accurately. 

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Annotations 19-22

Cleary, Emma.  “Harlem Is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America (review)”.  MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the U.S 37.1 (2012) : 221-224  Web. 30 Nov. 2012

The author of this article is reviewing Rhodes-Pitts’s book “Harlem Is Nowhere. In this article Cleary, not only summarizes the book, but also analyses it while focusing on how Rhodes makes use of the works of other authors to express her own fascination with the preservation and extension of knowledge of Harlem. It is important to read this essay as a review and not an argument based essay because it's main focus is to explain the construction of Rhodes-Pitts's book.

Byerman, E. Keith.  “Anger in a Small Place: Jamaica Kincaid's Cultural Critique of Antigua” College Literature 22.1 (1995) : 91-102. Web. 30 Nov. 2012

In this article Berman argues that Kincaid’s first three books, including “A Small Place” reveal a sense of hostility towards the world, and with “A Small Place” specifically feels this is show through Kincaid’s use of the second person to “offend without challenge”, and looks at other ways she expresses this anger towards colonialism within the piece using other devices like use of the oppressive masters language of English to retaliate with the spoken word where there is silence. From reading this specific essay an emotion can now be applied to Kincaid's works, that the reader can try and look for when reading.

McLeod, Corinna. “Imaginary Insurrections: New Criticism on Caribbean Writers”.  Small Axe  27.3, (2008) : 77-92. Web. 30 Nov. 2012

Corinna McLeod's article practically summarizes  Kincaid’s “A Small Place”, but while doing so pays attention specifically to how Kincaid uses the dual perspective as both an insider and outsider to address colonialism in what McLeod argues is a mocking tone used to “(re)Mythologize” Antigua. It is important to read the essay this way because it addresses the mechanics Kincaid uses in "A Small Place, and assists a reader of Kincaid's book in finding a tone that can be used to describe satirical feel of the book. 

Philipson, Robert. “The Harlem Renaissance as Postcolonial Phenomenon.” African American Review 40.1 (2006) : 145-160. Web. 30 Nov. 2012

Philip Robertson’s essay, The Harlem Renaissance as Postcolonial Phenomenon, illustrates how the literary efforts of multiple “West Indie” immigrant writers such as Claude McKay, Amy Jacques Garvey, and Eric Walrond made major contributions to the Harlem Renaissance. The author makes this meaning available by differentiating the modes of thought and culture developed in the British, the French, and the American empires and how these modes of thoughts affected the writers from each empire respectively. It is important to read the essay this way because it permits the reader a look at the different cultural backgrounds that came together to contribute to the development of American cultural ideals.

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The Liver as the Individual Mindset that Sets a Nation

After an event like 9/11 during which a plethora of individuals lost their lives via a terrorist attack on the world trade center, a fear emerges over the preservation of life. For 9/11 specifically this fear was amplified by mass media to the point that the resulting paranoia, and cautionary ideals spread well beyond mass media, to our mail, sidewalks and dinner tables predominantly through the medium of television, and the images on screen. With the same real live events being presented to us through the same framed, detached, medium, a question is allowed to emerge on how much we can take to face value, and how liable even that information is. From there a final question forms of how real is our perception of life, or living, which we've found it such a necessity to defend?

 In Claudia Rankine’s poem “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely” Rankin examines what seems to be the failure of us all to filter the images and information given, and near robotically accept all of the things we are fed by the media regardless of its effect on our ability differentiate fact, fiction, and truth from reality. Rankine’s poem further goes to suggest the more concrete liability of proximity and real physical experience that can never be properly portrayed through disembodied images, while in her style of mixed media fuses multiple pictures labels and visual icons into the poem that act as agents of the poem rather than illustrations for the poem, along with the varying anecdotes of events that make up the poem. I’d like to argue that the image of the human body containing a liver over the image of the United States, is an important key image in the poem not only because of its repeated appearance in the piece, but because it serves as a metaphor to the overall message of how individual filtration of the images seen in the media are as heavily vital to the function of a nation, as a liver is to the function of the human body.

“Why do I care about the liver?...” Rankine writes, in parallel creating the rhetorical question why do I, as in any one individual, care about how the knowledge of life events are taken into the body and mind. The remaining stanza or in this case paragraph of the poem goes on to explain that it is important to care about such things because the level of self-filtration, is the first step in determining specifically what messages we receive from the world around us and how we will from there internalize it, and externally regard ourselves and others around us deriving self-meaning, which then evolves into group, meaning and eventually cultural meaning as we converse and socialize as human beings. Similarly to how neglect of the liver or extended absence of one is potentially fatal to the body, neglecting your ability to choose carefully how information is perceived can be fatal to one’s culture, especially since the vital organ in this case is self-maintained.

Using the liver at all, along with its representation in the human body, and its function for the human body, reflects a human nature of society, human in that like the human being it can die or in society’s case fall apart. Rankine’s use of the liver image commands recognition that the individual directly affects the whole.  “Why are we here if not for each other?” is one of the self-dialogues that Rankine uses in the poem that amplifies the point that our lives are not affecting just ourselves alone. She says death is second to loneliness, and in the same one page stanza this appears says it’s attained by not feeling, which the poem overall suggest cannot happen until we go beyond the given. By not caring about the info we are fed by the media used to determine our realities, and not taking the step to actively engage in the events around us to filter the factual and staged, and determine for ourselves as a working liver what’s good for the body or society as a whole, the muddled toxins of misinformation will slip through, possibly killing what we call civilization.

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Annotations 15-18

Mukherjee, Bharati.  “Immigrant Writing: Changing the Contours of a National Literature”.  American Literary History. Vol. 23, No. 3, pp. 680 - 696 (2011) Web. Nov. 2012

The author argues that works like Danticat’s “Create Dangerously” fall more accurately under  the category of “Literature of New Arrival”, and is distinctly different from the traditional and canonical literature the US groups such works under now. Bharati feels that the “literature of the immigrant experience” is not properly explored and has yet to receive a more insightful literary theory. This is backed by the author's use of multiple literary examples in which immigrant writers voice their experiences and histories from the homes they left, in relation to where they are now as American citizens. 

Pulitano, Elvira. “An Immigrant Artist at Work: A Conversation with Edwidge Danticat”. Small Axe. Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 39 – 61 (2011) Web. Nov. 2012

This article depicts an interview with the author and Edwidge Danticat. Pulitano conducts the interview because she herself is an immigrant with interest in literature and immigration matters who found Danticat’s work “fascinating” and set up the interview within a trip to Miami. The interview is first set up with a brief bit of background information on both parties, followed by some of the author’s personal feelings about immigration and Danticat’s works and then transitions into the questions. The questions include things like Danticat’s reflection on how her books are received, some of the thought process behind some of her ideas, and her views on similar works to her own.

Dash, J Michael. “Imaginary Insurrections: New Criticism on Caribbean Writers”. Research in African Literatures. Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 115-125 (2012) Web. Nov. 2012

Dash argues in his essay that a trend has begun to take place in some Caribbean Writing that uses the “Warrior of the Imaginary” (“the idea of the warrior writer who fights for "vulnerable nations," "little cultures," and "threatened societies") as a shield to produce broad, and vague lacking representations of the ideals they, try to set ultimately misinterpreting and misusing the theme itself. It is written as a sort of cautionary article that draws attention to multiple examples of misuse of uses the “Warrior of the Imaginary”.

Bimbisar, Irom. “Alterities in a Time of Terror: Notes on the Subgenre of the American 9/11 Novel”. Contemporary Literature. Vol. 53, No. 3, pp. 517-547 (2012) Web. Nov. 2012

This article isn't as argument driven as it is informative. Bimbisar provides multiple examples of what types of writing were released around the time after the events, of 9/11, and gives the reader a glimpse of the literary world post 9/11, and some of the themes, ideals and mindsets that arose from the event.

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Annotations 11-14

Kimberly, Emma. “Politics and Poetics of Fear after 9/11: Claudia Rankine's Don't Let Me Be Lonely”. Journal of American Studies. Vol. 45, No. 4, pp. 777-791, (2011) Web. Nov. 2012

In this article Kimberly argues that Rankine's “mix-media” poetry reveals a need for the reader to recognize the flaws in media representation after 9/11, and how these representations affect the public. This is done by first analyzing trends in literature of other poets after the event on 9/11, and providing some background before getting into Rankine's take in “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely”. In consequence of reading Kimberly’s article awareness is established of the time period for which most of Rankine's ideas gain influence.

Osagie, Iyunolu and Buzinde, Christine N. “Culture and Postcolonial Resistance: Antigua in Kincaid’s  A Small Place”.  Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 38, No. 1, pp. 210–230, (2011) Web. Nov. 2012

This article is an analyses of Kinkaid’s “A small place” under the argument that postcolonial theory is a useful tool in understanding Kincaid’s objective in A Small Place. It is backed by a detailed explanation of what the postcolonial theory is and how it relates to Kinkaid’s novel in the way that she uses the narrative point of view of tourism to examine the effects of third world tourism in a place like Antigua.

Larkin, Lesley. “ Reading and Being Read: Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place as Literary Agent”. Callaloo, Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 193-211, (2012) Web. Nov. 2112

In this essay Larkin argues that Kinkaid’s” performative intervention underwrites imperialism, colonialism, and tourism, and that the book produces reading subject by illustrating scenes of reading “socially and materially situated encounters” She approaches this by doing a part by part analytical review of the book, and ultimately explains how Kinkaid’s tourist serves as an agent or “self-interpellative”  tool used to create the scene/imagery of the tour of Antigua through the eye's of the tourist.

Fidecaro, Agnese. “Jamaica Kincaid’s Practical Poliitics of The Intimate in My Garden “ Women's Studies Quarterly,  Vol. 34, No. 1/2, pp. 250-270, (2006) Web. Nov. 2112

The article argues that Kincaid uses skilled exploration of gardening as a way to sort of resist full orientation into the society she has been placed in as an American immigrant, and find her place between it and the nostalgia of her old home. Fidecaro does this by examining Kincaid's use of “practical politics” in the form of what externally can be viewed as garden writing.

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Annotations 9 and 10

Having still not seen any comments/grading on the previous annotation's I'm still not all together sure I'm doing these correctly, but here goes the ninth and tenth additions. 

Melanie , Murray. “Shifting Identities and Locations in Jamaica Kincaid's My Garden (book): And a Small Place.” Academic psychiatry.  Vol. 39, No. 1, pp. 116-126 (2001) Web. Oct. 2012

The author argues that Kincaid's work in both My Garden (Book:) and a Small Place “negotiates between a fixed ‘originary’ space and the modem world.”  By analyzing the connection between her use of location, and things to make a point. 

O'Brien, Susie. “The Garden and the World: Jamaica Kincaid and the Cultural Bf Ecocriticism.” Mosaic : a Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature. Vol. 50, No. 2, pp. 167-184 (2002) Web. Oct. 2012

This essay argues that Jamaica Kincaid's writing examines the ecocritical mandate to get back to the physical world using both connections and disconnections between ecocriticism and multiculturalism. The author does this by analyzing some ecocriticism trends, and ecocritical moves to embrace a more multicultural agenda, then relates those to what Kincaid has done in My Garden (Book:).

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Annotations 7 and 8

Martin, Ardis C. “Television Media as a Potential Negative Factor in the Racial Identity Development of African American Youth.” Academic psychiatry.  Vol. 32, No. 4, pp. 338,  (08, 2008) Web.  Oct. 2012

This article argues that in general the images seen in media including television produce negative stereotypes about African Americans and overall hurts the racial identity development of African American youth and impacts the majority of society’s views of Blacks.

Linz, D. “Overrepresentation and Underrepresentation of African Americans and Latinos as Lawbreakers on Television News.” Journal of Communication. Vol. 50, No. 2, pp. 131-154, (2000) Web. Sept. 2012.

This article assess representations of Blacks, Latinos, and Whites as lawbreakers and law defenders in television news and argues that all the races are misrepresented in the media either by being over- or underrepresented, resulting in obscureness in regards to each demographics placement in crime.

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Reson Behind Pemberton's Use of Antidisestablishmentarianism

Gayle Pemberton’s Antidisestablishmentarianism, a short story in “The Hottest Water in Chicago uses the personal essay to criticize to portrayal of African American’s in the media during  some of the earlier stages of television.  Pemberton Argues that the portrayal of African American on television at the time was “lacking in reality” and didn’t fully represent the race as a whole. I found it interesting that she used one of the longest words in the English language as the title, and after learning its definition, understand it’s parallel to Pemberton’s argument, and see why she selected it as the title of the piece. I think it is important to see this parallel as it amplifies her augment as a symbolic device.

As defined by free online dictionary online, antidisestablishmentarianism is “the doctrine or political position that opposes the withdrawal of state recognition of an established church; - used especially concerning the Anglican Church in England. Opposed to disestablishmentarianism”. Judging by that definition and Pemberton’s use of the word in the narrative, it is clear that antidisestablishmentarianism is not merely a long catchy title but a symbolic allusion to the way the media at the time of the narrative refused to recognize African Americans as equals. Pemberton begins the essay talking about a nemesis of that is credited with ruining her life and leading her to teach literature, she states with her “a-n-t-i-d-i-s-e-s-t-a-b-l-i-s-h-m-e-n-t-a-r-i-a-n-i-s-m”. Literally, this can be translated as; Gloria Lockerman became Pemberton’s nemesis using her ability to go against the media misrepresentation of African Americans.   In this way the word itself is no longer a manifestation of its literal origin, but instead an extended metaphor referring to the nature of the doctrine the word is named for.

Now antidisestablishmentarianism is not only the narrative’s title but also, the theme and a reflection of Pemberton’s argument, that just as the state refused to recognize an established church, the media failed to recognized an established race and provide a realistic representation, basically overshadowing the true potential of the race. The segment referring to the night they watched the show in which Gloria Lockerman appears and apparently spells this colossal word, reinforces this theme. The grandmother, known to be the toughest critic in the house, praises the girl on screen and tells Pemberton she should be more like her.  This segment is Pemberton’s way of showing just how influential the media is in that even her own grandmother, can be tricked by the misrepresentation. Pemberton is appalled by this suggestion. Where is her antidisestablishmentarianism? Where is her recognition for all her physical hard work, and why is it so easy to be dismissed simply because this Gloria Lockerman appears on television.

Pemberton presents a type of danger in the power the media can potentially hold in relation to reality. She notes how the few black appearances on television are either very minor or in very specific genres musical entertainment, as if that is the only recognition the African American race warrants. The narrative concludes with how furious she got after watching the racist episode of The Mickey Mouse Club, and how once again the media quarantines the African American race in this specific unrealistic, misinformed category. She then challenges the reader at the end to develop their own resistance, their own antidisestablishmentarianism, as she has, showing that it is possible to not be completely media blinded, when Grandma tells her, “Pay no attention to that shit.”

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Re: Introduction for Essay One

After I read of Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, I feel I would have been a lot more interested in the actual poems, of Lorde rather than her essays. During the Interview Lorde had with Adrine Rich Lorde speaks of her preference to poetry. I feel a lot of Lorde’s ability was wasted in these essays, not in that they weren't significant, she presents a lot of good points with her views on feminism and the issues faced when one is a BLACK LESBIAN AMERICAN FEMINIST, but the presentation of the essays just come off whiny and redundant. Overall the main problem was that Lorde used a lot of poetic elements in the essays that just didn't work.

(In this version I completely removed my personal opinion which served only as useless filler. I think had I done so originally I would have been able to use more words on my explanation/body paragraph.) 

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First Six Annotations and The Most Experimental of All Future Posts of This Type

I used the tip from purdue owl on how do do these.(http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/614/01/)

The first two sources are direct repeats of the abstract word for word, then I asked a friend and was told the summaries should be my own, in my eyes both are a sort of summary and I wasn't sure what to do so I did a mixture. This will be my most obscure Annotation this year as I hope to improve as I grasp what it is I'm supposed to be doing exactly.

Scott MacPhail. “June Jordan and the New Black Intellectuals” African American Review , Vol. 33, No. 1 pp. 57-71  (Spring, 1999) Web.  Sept. 2012

The career of the artist, activist and intellectual June Jordan, who has been excluded from the media representation of the new generation of African-American intellectuals, is analyzed. MacPhail addresses the models for an African-American intellectual available to Jordan as she embarked on her career.

Fish, Cheryl J. “Place, Emotion, and Environmental Justice in Harlem: June Jordan and Buckminster Fuller's 1965 "Architextual" Collaboration” Discourse  Vol. 29, No. 2/3 pp. 330-345,412  (Spring, 2007) Web.  Sept. 2012

This essay examines the nexus between environmental and social justice as an intervention into the materiality of urban planning in a collaboration between two leading public intellectuals: June Jordan and R. Buckminster Fuller. Both interdisciplinary thinkers and civic environmentalists, they illustrate the concept that "environmental quality and economic and social health are mutually constitutive.

Metres, Philip. "June Jordan's War Against War." Peace Review 15.2 (2003): 171. Academic Search Complete. Web. Sept. 2012.

In this article Metres expresses his views of how writers like June Jordan affected their era with their literature. His main point is that “June Jordan, one of the few poets whose resistance persisted, and even grew more forcefully articulate until her untimely death in 2002, offers a model for poet-activists attempting that difficult balance between working at the art of poetry and contributing to the effort to resist war and violence.”

Flynn, Richard. "Affirmative acts": Language, childhood, and power in June Jordan's cross-writing”

Children's Literature30 (2002): 159-185. Web. Sept. 2012

As stated in the abstract, Richard feels that,  “ If Jordan's success as a cross-writer lies first in her exploration of adult and child concerns dialogically, it is also articulated in her conscious theorizing about actual children in relation to historical and material concerns.”. I found this article interesting because it addressed an idea I’d like to try and find some parallel to in Civil Wars.

Rudnitsky, Lexi. “The "Power" and "Sequelae" of Audre Lorde's Syntactical Strategies”

Callaloo, (2003), Volume 26, Issue 2, pp. 473 – 485 Web. Sept. 2012

Lexi’s aim in this article is as specified to “draw on a dialogical model to analyze Lorde's use of syntactic ambiguity. This ambiguity, I intend to argue, often has a pointed objective: that of complicating the subject position, undermining monolithic categories of identity, and demonstrating that difference can be a source of creativity.” I’m interested in this concept and wanted to discuss this in my first essay originally but didn’t know how to go about addressing the issue as Lexi does here.

Morris, Margaret Kissam. “Audre Lorde: Textual Authority and the Embodied Self” Frontiers, (2002), Volume 23, Issue 1, pp. 168, Web. Sept. 2012

This article analyses “ Lorde's use of embodiment to reverse the balance of power between the oppressed body and the written text” using examples from various writings by Lorde including some discussed in Sister Outsider.

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Good Lorde, Stick to Poetry!

Of all that I read of Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider, the only essay I was able to firmly get behind was her “Poetry Is Not a Luxury”. There is a saying that falls along the lines of the fact that we see what we look for. Similarly when reading or observing any sort of media, what we like or choose to hold onto or find interest in varies depending upon the individual, their personal interests and what one would look for when choosing their media. That said Sister Outsider is not a book I would have picked up on my own, and based on all that I did read, I don’t believe it is something I’d return to. Sister Outsider is a book of essays and speeches by author Audre Lorde. It falls under the list of difficult reads for me, mainly because of how slow paced and uninteresting the selection was. After reading the book I feel I would have been a lot more interested in the actual poems, of Lorde rather than her essays. During the Interview Lorde had with Adrine Rich Lorde speaks of her preference to poetry. “But communicating deep feeling in linear, solid blocks of print felt arcane, a method beyond me,” was part of one of her responses, and I agree. I feel a lot of Lorde’s ability was wasted in these essays, not in that they weren’t significant, she presents a lot of good points with her views on feminism and the issues faced when one is a BLACK LESBIAN AMERICAN FEMINIST, but the presentation of the essays just come off whiny and redundant.

A lot of the times I felt like she was just over preaching to the choir, as Lorde’s essays though thankfully short seemed to drag on and on with a lot of old information being force fed down the throat. Overall the main problem was that Lorde used a lot of poetic elements in the essays that just didn’t work.

Repetition is a device that Lorde makes heavy use of in her essays. In poetry this can be a powerful, significant tool used to add emphasis on a particular idea or symbol, but in an essay it’s just very annoying and border line obnoxious. In Andre Lorde’s case, for me it almost countered the effect she was trying to get by clarifying the importance of her points, for example her capitalization of the word “Black”. As I got into reading these essays I noticed she did this every time the word black appeared regardless of its placement in the sentences of the essay. Where these essays, poems yes I get it, she’s a black author writing for and about black people, and women specifically. Lorde wants her version of the word black to be regarded as a direct noun. She is not talking about black the color, or even the label to describe skin color, but the being, and all of what it means to be “Black”. She wants the reader to understand the empowerment, not the shame of being associated with this term. When used in an essay however this just comes across as overbearing. There is no art to it, as expected in a poem and so you end up just getting the feeling of, “Alright, alright, we get you’re black and proud. NEXT!”

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Hello and Welcome to Stapled Papers!

Technology has decreased the amount of paper in our lives so much, providing alternatives to the way we receive our news, literature, and even our mail. The only paper it hasn't managed to fully eliminate but has somehow managed to increase is the stacks upon stacks of stapled paper. These stapled papers are the things that clutter our desks, get crammed into our backpacks, folders, and notebooks, and half the time we don't even want them. They are the leash that binds us to our responsibilities reminding us we are grown, and have work to do, and most importantly  have all been important in some way at some time. Most of them we wrote ourselves, and half of them once they've served their short term purpose will never be looked upon again, or until you need that old zipper binder for a new class, interview, or presentation and go, "Man look at all these old stapled papers."