I choose to live in Poverty

That’s ridiculous! You can’t choose poverty, poverty simply chooses you.  Whether it be your family that you were born into living below the line of I-can-provide-for-myself or whatever other circumstances that cause you not to apart of the middle class and wealthy, some things are out of your control.  Yes, some lucky few work their butts off to get out the ghettos and make something out of their lives, while some of the unlucky people start off at the top and dwindle their way down to nothing, but poverty will always exist and not by choice.  I think it is fair to say that everyone would like to live a life where they don’t have to worry about their next meal or where they’ll stay to have a peaceful sleep at night and sometimes living in poverty does not provide these luxuries.  The bottom line is poverty is not a choice.

Malcolm X and Integration

Malcolm X was a man that spoke highly of black pride.  He wanted Negroes, no, African Americans to understand that they were equal to any other ethnic group in the world.  He preached of separation.  After his pilgrimage to Mecca, he realized that the color of one’s skin did not matter as much the ability to accept and respect another person’s God given human rights, their ability to treat another person equally and to be able to work appropriately with one another.  He began to believe in integration because if all of humanity came together as one, then the world would be a more peaceful place.

We have definitely come a long way from our ancestors that were the enforcers and victims of the Jim Crow laws and from the segregation that continued up until almost 50 years ago.  Integration provides an atmosphere of diversity that separation or segregation cannot create.  Will we ever be able to truly integrate? Probably not, people will always find way to keep other separated within any type of grouping but I do believe that this is something that we should always strive for.

Malcolm X Part 1 Reflection

This is by far the best book I have ever had to read for school.  I know I said the same thing about “Siddhartha” just weeks ago but this book wins 100 times over.  I was actually pretty excited to get started reading “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” because I had seen the movie and was pretty moved by how different it was from the basics we get in school about Malcolm X.

So like Mr. McCarthy said, it was a pretty smart move for Malcolm X to use Alex Haley as his author, not only to get his book out there, but just the relation between two African American men who are deeply interested in their heritage proved this book worthy of reading.  The style of writing in this novel made this an exceptionally easy read. The thing that caught my attention from the first 12 chapters of the book was Malcolm interest to do new things all the time.  You can really see his life spiraling down the moment he enters the pool hall in Boston because he is so eager to grow up like the cool blacks of the city.  His new hobbies included smoking and drinking at the age of 16.  When he gets to Harlem things only get worse when he starts to gamble and steal.  He stays high and “wears his guns like ties.”  When his hyped up lifestyle finally gets him locked up, his willingness to try new things ultimately alters his life when he is told by his brother not to eat pork and not smoke.  His curiosity of this new suggestion leads him to his own revelations about whites and blacks.  If he didn’t have such an open approach to living he wouldn’t be the self-educated leader that he was in his life time.

King still King? (King, referring to Dr. Martin Luther King, of course.)

Moments before given this prompt, I was thinking about why we nationally observed this day in the first place.  There is no need for me to go into detail because everyone knows what he stood while he was alive and why we save this day every year to honor him but the question still stands, is the King still King?

Honestly, he was a darn good leader, like any great king should be but he never aimed to be king in terms of ruling over many people.  He had a strong belief that others held true to them too which led to all the change that continues to happen each and every day.  When you create a change as big as MLK’s then of course you deserved to be acknowledged for it.  What he has fought for will always be an issue in this country but those are obstacles that one man can not change in his lifetime.  The King is definitely still King because his legacy will always be remembered.

Music Makes the World go 'Round

I adore music with every ounce of my being.  I can’t talk about one song, one artist, one album, or one genre without stopping but here goes nothing.

Top TEN artists of mine (in no particular order, of course):

·         Robin Thicke

·         OutKast

·         Tony Toni Tone

·         Common Sense

·         Jill Scott

·         John Legend

·         Stevie Wonder

·         A Tribe Called Quest

·         Marvin Gaye

·         Musiq Soulchild

Now I’ll pick five of those artists and talk about an album, some songs and/or likes and dislikes.

 Number 5: Tony Toni Tone

They were pretty popular before I was born but two hits that I like are “Anniversary” (1993) and “Whatever You Want” (1991).  “Anniversary” is kind of a seductive R&B with a sweet message for wedding anniversaries.  I love the beat and the instrumental.  “Whatever You Want” was on the R&B number one spot for two weeks in 1991 and was created without lead singer Raphael Saadiq featuring.  The chorus for this song is what I admire the most and they sing about providing for there special one, without boundaries.

Number 4: Common Sense

Hip-Hop artist Common’s first critically acclaimed album was Like Water for Chocolate (2000).  My favorite collaboration on this album would be “The Light” featuring Bilal.  The song sounds old school and it’s about him talking about a lover of his and she’s the light of his life.   “I Am Music” featuring Jill Scott from the album Electric Circus (2002) is a favorite of mine as well because he and Jill Scott bring it home on how music is within him in every aspect of life.  “I Used to Love H.E.R.” is not really my favorite by him but for an assignment in my Brit Lit class last year I pointed out the clever use his literary devices.  Throughout this song he refers to hip-hop as a woman.  His albums Be (2005) and Finding Forever (2007) are composed of award winning compilations including tracks featuring Kanye West, John Legend, Will.i.am, D’Angelo, and Lilly Allen.

Number 3: Marvin Gaye

The Prince of Soul is before my time but I adore his music.  I saw the documentary of his life this past summer and I heard him all the time thanks to my parents’ interest in him and I just became so intrigued by his tone, pitch and the instrumental in his songs.  And I learned that he does all his background vocals too that just adds more flavor to his music.  My personal favorites include “Sexual Healing”, “Mercy Mercy Me”, “I Want You” and “What’s Going On”.  One of the greatest things about him was that he sang about what was important to him without really caring about how the audience felt.

 Number 2: A Tribe Called Quest

I only heard of them through my parents and I think they are really artistic.  This four man Hip-Hop group is known for their top hits “Bonita Applebum”, “Can I Kick It”, and “I Left My Wallet in El Segundo” which are also my favorites.  My all time favorite by them would be “Hot Sex” (1992).  For me, it’s not so much the message that keeps me repeating the song but the funky bass that’s playing!

Number 1: OutKast

Frankly Speaking

I could not stand this book!  I have sympathy for  Vicktor Frankl’s suffering, along with the thousands of others that suffered and died too but I couldn’t get into this reading one bit.  A Man’s Search for Meaning was written to not only tell one man’s view of the Holocaust, but to introduce his method of psychology.  The introduction about how he knows these stories have been told millions of times but he wants to shed some light on what he learned while in the camp about the psychological make up of a man and the meaning of life really got me interested.  The part about the thoughts of his wife pulling him through each day was worth turning another page but anything else in between made me want to close the book.  Maybe I’m just soft and can not handle books on this topic because I couldn’t even finish the darn thing.  This was the first book I have ever read regarding the Holocaust and I don’t think ill read another.  I didn’t understand the full psychological damage he was going on about and I definitely did not get the logo therapy part.  This was, by far, one of the worse books I was forced to read for school.

Response to No Exit

No Exit was a mind boggling read.  We all know that nothing is certain after death and I believe that Jean-Paul Sartre has created some worthy food for thought.  I think that it is pretty amazing how people’s creativity can lead them to originate a new view on life after death.  After reading Sartre’s perspective of Hell, I can see his way as a way that is a lot more reasonable than devils and physical torture.  In my opinion, a mental Hell is far worse than a physical Hell because over time you can get used to the pain but no one can ever escape their thoughts.

One of his greatest points in this play is that, “Hell is other people.”  This easily falls under the inescapable torture of the mind.  I also found it very interesting that for Estelle, Garcin and Ines their Hell was beautifully personalized.  And by beautifully personalized I mean it simply can not get any worse for them.  I truly commend Sartre for his contrasting view of Hell, which is a topic I have never really given much thought about. Regardless of if Hell is psychological or physical, there is no real escape from the inevitable torture which is a point that he really brought home. I LOVED IT!!