Cycle of Racism

As we talked in class today about our final essay, which was about the existence of a cycle in American history. I read an article today that proved to me that there indeed is a cycle existing in American history today, and it is not a positive one. An African American man working at a warehouse in Tennessee, recently filed a complaint for his supervisor's discriminatory behavior against him. The worker has been discriminated for months, and he finally decided to record one of the conversations he had with his supervisor. In the recording, a shocking conversation could be heard that reminds the listeners of something from the Jim Crow days. The worker asks the supervisor if he could use the microwave, and the supervisor responds with a "hell no!". When asked why, he answered it was because the worker was not white. At a different time when the worker wanted to use the water fountain, the supervisor responded with the same reaction. A voice can be heard on the recording saying, "I need to put a sign here that says, 'white people only'". Federal Compress, which is the company that hired the supervisor, said it has a zero tolerance policy towards discrimination and the worker's supervisor was immediately fired.
After reading this article, it became clear to me that racism still exists in America today, and it is just lurking around in many places in society.  I believe racism taking in the form of violence has mostly disappeared from modern society but verbal racism still exists. I wrote a similar blog post the other day about a police commissioner making a racist comment about president Obama. In both cases, verbal racism took place and outsiders had to report to authority to have the racism stopped, in this case the victim himself. Verbal racism has been existing in America since the age of slavery, where it all started from addressing African Americans as the n-word. In our society now, the n-word and other derogatory words are used pretty normally in media, and in between people. I believe the cycle of verbal racism will continue on forever no matter what. Unlike physical violence, speaking is a very simple and easy task. Racist people who cannot express their discriminatory thoughts by violence are now doing it verbally and no one can control what they say except for themselves. If these racist people don't decide to completely eliminate their racist thoughts, verbal racism will never end.

Unchanging Cycle in America

As many cycles exist in American history, I believe one of the most distinct cycle is the one surrounding gun violence.
As you can see in this article, America owns the most guns with the statistic of 88 guns owned per 100 people. America is also responsible for the most gun related deaths out of any other country. On the other hand, japan has 0.6 guns owned per 100 people which makes it the country with the least owned guns and the fewest gun related homicides. I read both Japanese and American news online and the number of times I see gun related news is very significant. When I was CNN.com a few minutes ago I read an article about an another school shooting in Seattle Pacific University. As Iwas scrolling   down to read more, I looked at the side of the webpage where there are the related news articles. As I read these articles I realized how ridiculous so many of their titles sounded. The first news article was about a school in Washington buying bulletproof whiteboards. and the article right below it was about a survey in this one school where teachers answered they don't want to carry guns so they want armed guards in their school. Then about six articles continued after that all related to different school shootings. As I have read some of these articles, I realized a single trait throughout all of them. All of these articles contained comments from parents, or the people related to the killed victims. The comments off course, started off with them expressing their deep sadness for losing the people close to them. The interesting thing is that all of these comments then addressed a similar topic, which was about the government should do something with gun control.
Every time there is a gun related incident, the victims family and people who are close to them always express their feelings that the government should do something with gun control. The government always replies with a vacant answer, saying that they are working on it. I believe this is the unending cycle that is existing in America right now, gun related incidents happening and the victims telling the government to take action and the government replying to them with an empty answer.

Blurred Boundaries

I recently read a shocking article online that showed how a jumble of fantasy and reality can be very frightening. A 12-year old girl was found stabbed 19 times by her two friends in a forest. Her two friends, who were both also 12-years old, told the police that they were planning to kill her friend so that they can "impress a ghoulish character called slender man"(CNN). They explained that to impress the Slenderman, they had to kill a friend of theirs. The Slenderman is an urban legend born from an internet meme that has been going around for some time now. He is supposedly a tall man with no face who abducts children. I believe it is actually getting pretty famous and popular among the American culture, as many images of him can be seen online (like the one above) and even many virtual games about Slenderman are being created.

The girl's injuries were not life-threating but it is unbelievably freighting to hear that very young kids could potentially grow the thought of killing their friends based on an urban legend born from an internet meme. One of the two girls was known by her family that she has been showing a great deal of interest in the fictional character, Slenderman for a long time. According to her brother,  she was a "normal happy 12-year old with a couple of weird interests". She was a frequent visitor of this website that posts fictional horror stories, many of which are written to make them seem like true stories. I believe this could be seen as a common problem in the world right now where any kind of information could be accessed instantly by anyone. This girl probably didn't start to grow violent thoughts until she got exposed to all of the horror-related information online. The over exposure to the information on the internet made this girl lose sense of what is real and what is not. It is very dangerous how boundaries for reality and imagination has become very blurred in society nowadays. So many information, both true and false, are so easily accessible that it could make people become numb in determining what is reality and what is imaginary. Especially to young kids, like these 12-year old girls, it will be much harder for them to fully differentiate the information that they get exposed to. This makes me realize the fact that convenience always comes with a down side and it is the younger generation that gets affected the most.

Too Much Skin on Yearbook Picture?

As people get their high school yearbooks, they get amazed by the beautiful senior pictures in which they are dressed so nicely. However at one Utah high school, many female senior students were outraged after they have seen their senior photos. These students' yearbook photographs were arbitrarily edited by the school. Their photographs were edited by the school because these female students apparently violated the yearbook dress code. However, the reliability of the code came into question after many learned that the code failed to apply the policy to everyone who has violated the code. It turns out that the code was very obscure and it applied it's policy to very random students. There were even two students who wore the exact same cloths but only one of them got it's exposed skin photoshopped, whereas the other student didn't.

When I read this article, I was shocked to know that there are schools that do such things. It was not like the school prohibited their students from wearing skin exposed cloths everyday to school. It is hard for me to understand the motive behind the school's dress code policy for the yearbook pictures, which even turned out to be very ambiguous. Why suddenly install a strict dress code for the yearbook pictures? It is also unbelievable that the school board didn't expect any hostility to be aroused by the students when they arbitrarily edited the pictures without even asking the students. The school probably understands that yearbook photos are very important to seniors and to their family. Editing those pictures without any approval of the students or their family will obviously  cause opposition. There are many questions surrounding the motive behind the school's decision of creating the yearbook dress code.

Why do you think the school created such an obscure dress code?

Police Commissioner Forced to Resign

"I believe I did use the 'N' word in reference to the current occupant of the Whitehouse. For this, I do not apologize - he meets and exceeds my criteria for such."  These were the words written to a resident of a town in New Hampshire by the police commissioner of the town. The controversy started when one resident of the town overheard the commissioner Rober Copeland making racist comments about president Obama loudly in a public restaurant. The resident wrote a letter to the town manager about the incident and Copeland replied by the words I have on the top of this paragraph. The commissioner, Robert Copeland, who is currently 82 years old, sat "with his arms crossed at a packed town meeting" while angry residents called for his resignation over the racist comment he has made in a public place. (CNN) It was later confirmed that the police commission received the resignation letter from Copeland.  Read the full article here.


I feel disappointed to hear a news like this, and I believe it was a very reasonable decision that Robert Copeland decided to resign his position as a police commissioner. It is very sad to hear that a person who had a job that was supposed to protect people of the town, ends up resigning his job because the people desired him to. At the same time it makes me wonder if anyone in the police commission bothered to stop Copeland before he had to go far enough to make a loud racist comment in a public restaurant where everyone at the place could have heard him. I think it makes the people who chose to overlook the commissioner's racist personality be at the same level with Copeland.

Senior Prank Taken Too Far

As seniors in high schools show increasing excitement each day as the last day of high school for them is getting closer, the schools must brace themselves for the last and biggest hurdle which is the senior pranks that will be happening. Every year, unique senior pranks are seen in a lot of schools and some of them are indeed funny but there are also ones that could be taken as offensive to some people.

In this article, there is a story about a senior prank that was taken too far at a high school outside of Atlanta. A bunch of senior students at this high school hung a banner from the school's rooftop that said "N---a We Made It." The sign was meant for celebrating graduation, but it obviously struck many people who read it as offensive. The phrase on the banner was taken from the lyrics of a song written by the rapper Drake. Every year, there are senior pranks that involve offensive images or languages to a certain group of people. As many teachers and parents show concern for these excessive and offensive senior pranks happening every year, I think it is inevitable that these kind of pranks come out because these offensive words became a part of the American culture. The rapper Drake is a very popular rapper in America and his songs could be heard on the radio very frequently. Many of his songs have explicit language in it, and although the words are censored, it is very obvious what was actually being said. I feel like in our culture today, many offensive words that are frequently used are considered as "cool words" rather than words that was once used to disdain a certain group of people.

The principal of the high school in Atlanta commented that, "Even though it's a popular song lyric that you appreciate and like doesn't mean the whole world and our society in general are going to appreciate that." I found it interesting that the principal used the word "popular" because popular  means that something has been accepted by a large number of people. The hit song that included the phrase on the banner written by Drake became popular because many people liked it, which means most of them have accepted the lyrics too. Any kids or teenagers nowadays would inevitably come in contact with these offensive words in the American culture that is present today. Even in New Trier, which is considered to be one of the top schools in the nation, offensive phrases could be heard every day and no students react to these words because they have simply become a natural part in our society. I understand that the principal had to say those comments to fit in the good principal image, and the n-word phrase written on the banner was certainly offensive to some people, however no matter how many solutions the schools come up with, students will continue to use offensive words on a regular basis because they have been "accepted" by the society.

Most Popular Baby Names

According to Social Security's top 10 baby names of America in 2013 that have just been released, Noah became the most popular name for newborn boys which beat out Michael and Jacob, that have been reigning as the most popular names. For girls, Sophia held it's number one place for the third year in a row, although Sofia with an "f" is also coming up in the list. 
An article on CNN indicates that the trend for baby's names in America is heavily affected by it's pop culture. The fastest rise for baby girls name in 2012 was Arya, who was a popular character in the TV show "Game of Thrones". In 2013, the name Jayceon made the biggest jump in popularity. The reason for the sudden popularity for the name Jayceon can be traced to the name of a popular rapper, Jayceon Terrell Taylor, who is commonly know as The Game. Read the full article here.
This article made me wonder how serious American parents think about naming their kids. For me it is hard to believe that some parents in America name their kids after a rapper. How serious do you think parents in America think about naming their kids?

The Unprecedented Effect of Movies We Watch

The prevalence of excessive violence in recent Rated-R and PG-13 movies in America has been conspicuous and the effect of being exposed to constant violent media is known to have serious negative effects on viewers. Sexual contents in American films are very restricted to viewers, for including only a couple of swear words in a movie could have it rated Rated R. However, the exposure to constant sexual contents in movies are known to have an effect on the viewers that could actually be worse than the effects of violent media. A research was conducted in University of Missouri where over 1,200 kids between the ages of 12 and 14 were asked the number of movies they have watched that contained sexual scenes. The scientists later followed up with the participants and they found out that teenagers and young adults who have answered that they have watched a large number of movies that contained sexual contents when they were young were more likely to become sexually active at a younger age and were more likely to engage in risky behavior such as not using condoms during sexual intercourse. 

We all have watched many PG-13 movies and Rated-R movies that contain sexual contents. It is very scary to think that while we watch these movies, our brains become naturally affected by the sexual images and it ultimately affects our views and actions towards sexuality. The effects really differ from person to person but next time you watch a movie with sexual references, it won't be a bad idea to keep in mind that the sexual images we see could be subconsciously affecting our brains.

Not so PG-13

As I have been doing some research on CARA (Classification & Ratings Administration), for my Junior-theme why question, which is "why in American films, sexuality is considered more unsuitable to the audiences than violence?", I realized that I really have no clue how to answer my why question. I have read a couple articles online and a part of a book so far but no answer was found for why sexuality is considered more harmful to viewers than violence in American movies. For this blog post I will write about one of the biggest questions I had when I was researching about this topic, whitish focuses on one specific film rating: PG-13.

 The question is, why is violence so prevalent in PG-13 films, especially in modern films? Violent scenes in PG-13 movies nowadays are quite tremendous. People getting pierced by bullets, stabbed by knives countless times, engulfed in bomb blasts, crushed by debris,  etc.... The ways of people getting killed in PG-13 movies are becoming more elaborated and gruesome as days go by. The same can be said with horror scenes in PG-13 horror movies, but the overload of violence in recent PG-13 movies is way more concerning. A research by Ohio University shows that the number of PG-13 movies that contains gun violence has tripled since the rating first came out in 1985. Researchers feared that the huge increase in gun actions in PG-13 movies could strengthen the weapons effect and could cause teens to become interested in using them. I believe not only movies but games like Call of Duty or Battlefield, which are war games that has the players shooting their opponents to death, could add fuel to the fire of teens becoming less cautious to using guns.  Sexuality in PG-13 movies is at most actors using curse words or words that indicate sexual content. The lack of balance between the amount of violence and sexuality allowed in PG-13 movies is obvious but the reason behind MPAA handling sexual contents more strictly is just a mystery.

Although I'm still in the midst of a long research to go, I feel like I can get some good answers to my why question if I research more about the prevailing violence in PG-13 movies.

Autism Rate on the Rise

The number of children in America who are diagnosed with autism has been increasing significantly each year. This year, the number of children diagnosed with autism was 1 in every 68, which was marked as an increase of 30% from 2 years ago when it was 1 in every 88. The CDC has also reported that the number of people in color who are diagnosed with autism is on the rise.

The definition of autism is known to have changed in the past couple years. The CDC states that the autism we see now is not similar to what was diagnosed as autism 20 years ago when the number first shot up. In the past, autism had been considered as an intellectual disability but now research shows that kids with average or above average IQs could be diagnosed with autism. (Read the article
here)
What is considered important now is to recognize that autism is not a rare disorder anymore and that each individual gets the best help they can get. Autism is a lifelong disorder and the family must give the best environment for people with autism to live in. The problem is, compared to the number of autism rising, there aren't enough trained professionals for the disorder especially in poor areas where there is still disparity for the knowledge of disease itself. I believe  New Trier gives a first class support to kids who have autism or any other mental disabilities but the majority of high schools in America is not even close to where they should be. With the number surely increasing each year, it will be a matter of time before this becomes a grave issue in the country unless a solution is proposed soon.

X-Rated Films

As I was researching about the film rating system (CARA) for my Junior Theme topic during class today, I came across a very interesting article. The article talked about a rating system that once existed in the past but is gone now. Once famous in society for it's unique name as a rating system back then, the X-rating has completely vanished lately.

When the original film rating system was launched in 1968, there were only four ratings: G, M, R, and X. Off course, X-rated movies were meant for adults only because it contained extreme sexual or violent content. It was originally aimed at viewers over the age eighteen but it later got lowered to seventeen. We now recognize X-rated films as NC-17 rated films. When I asked Mr.Bolos about it, he said that X-rated movies were a common thing when he was a teenager. He also said that not many people bothered to watch X-rated movies in the theaters because they wouldn't want to be judged by people around them.

So what was the reason behind the X-rated film's disappearance? The poor industry booms in the 70's played some role in it but the main reason for it's demise was the failure of trademark. When creating the X-rating system, the MPAA didn't copyright it. Because of this, the pornography industry exploited the X. Adults films started to use multiple X's to promise it's increase in the adult material. Soon the X became tied with the meaning "hardcore", and mainstream film industries distanced themselves from the X. Shortly after the X-rating got changed to NC-17.

The irony that the name of a system created solely for the purpose of warning the viewers of adult content is now used to represent modern pornography is incredible.  

The Film Rating System

Why do we have the film movie rating system(CARA)? As a big movie guy myself, I believe this is a fundamental question in the cinema world that gets overlooked a lot. However, this might be because when you think about it, the asnwer is just too obvious and yes, it is. Today's film rating system was established to give the parents a general information they need to decide if the film is appopriate for the family. Many people believe that the PG-13 rating was created for a specific age group like the Rated-R rating. It was actually created to simply warn the parents that PG-13 movies have elements more extreme than PG or G movies and that they should look into the contents of the movie more to make sure their children can watch it.
 
What I thought was the most interesting thing was the fact that the CARA is continuously evolving so that it fits the current sensitivities of the family. It is said that elements in movies such as violence, drug use, language, sexuality are periodically re-evaluated through surveys. I question how sensitivities towards these elements could change over time. Are people becoming numb to these elements by being exposed to them so much? How extreme will these elements become in the future? The ultimate purpose of CARA is for films to be connected to the appopraite audiences but I feel like this fundamental rule is slowly being compromised.

Read the full article here.

Is There a Difference?

“Because we saw so many people die, we became so used to it,” a prison camp survivor from North Korea had told the commission. North Korea, the country that had caused numerous worldwide disorders in the past, has now revealed it’s true form of a brutal state “that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.”  The commission traced the origins of the abuses and found out they are directly related to the North Korean government. They are referring to the International Criminal Court for a possible prosecution. A letter was sent to Kim Jong Un as a warning that he might be facing prosecution for crime against humanity. The commission is censuring world leaders for not taking action in spite of knowing such a terrible incident. If you would like to read more, click here.

Nevertheless I believe America is not at a position to have the right to say such things. The actin by the commission made me think the times in the past America had supposedly “helped” other countries but ended up sowing the seeds of discord. For example, in the Vietnam war, America had many soldiers and civilians die in vain and ended up causing more chaos and damage to the country in the end. Same with what happened in Iraq and in Afghanistan. America have been doing things that aren't that much different than what North Korea is doing right now. If America is taking action about what is happening in North Korea right now, I really hope we think about it carefully so we don't repeat the mistakes we have made in the past.

What do you think America should do?

Opening Ceremony Malfunction

While watching the opening ceremony for Sochi Winter Olympic 2014 with my family, we were astonished by the flawlessness of the process until we saw a major malfunction, which was during the climax of the ceremony. As we can see in the two pictures, the picture on the top shows the malfunction. The top right snowflake is seen not opening like the other ones; the six snowflakes were supposed to get bigger and form the Olympic symbol of the five rings. Countries, including America, aired the opening ceremony with the malfunction except for the country that the opening ceremony actually took place in, Russia. When airing the opening ceremony in Russia, the Russian state television swapped the footage with a one from a rehearsal, which is the second photo right before the malfunction happened,

As Mr.Bolos had mentioned in class before, the Russian state television is under the heavy influence of the Russian government. It is known that president Vladimir Putin had repeatedly emphasized the importance of making Russian flawless to the world during the Olympics. It goes without saying that the swapping of the footages was under the directions of the government trying to make Russia look flawless to the world, at least in the country. The philosophy of Russia trying to show itself flawless during the Olympic, where billions of people's attention is at, is completely understandable. But the government's decision of covering up the footage told the world something that is far away from flawless.

How do you think the people in Russia felt when they learned about this malfunction being covered up? Do you think this changed how Russia is seen in the world?

Marijuana: Will You Take the Risk?

  
Marijuana is the most popular illegal drug today, except for two states, where it is completely legal.  The number of states in America that have legalized marijuana for medical uses is 21. Whereas Washington and Colorado are the only two states that have legalized the recreational use of Marijuana. Washington has not yet licensed recreational outlets but Colorado has.
   On January 1st this year, Colorado became the first state in America history to allow the sale of recreational marijuana. Recreational meaning there are stores in Colorado where you can just walk in and buy weed, just like alcohol or Tobacco.  People who are older than 21 with a Colorado ID can buy up to an ounce at licensed stores. You can read more about Colorado’s recreational marijuana shops here. Although the buying age is restricted ,it is obvious that people under 21 can easily get in touch with marijuana from the people who bought marijuana at the recreational stores.
   Although marijuana is known to have been used for medical reasons, there are still arguments both for and against smoking weed. The high addictiveness of marijuana is becoming a major problem for teens in America. In this article, it is said that nearly 1 in every 10 teens have smoked weed at least 20 times or more in the past month. The high addiction is not the only problem, marijuana is also known that it might have long term effects that could be quite harmful to the human brain. You can read about the pros and cons of smoking weed here.Researchers state that more research is needed to completely determine marijuana’s benefits and it’s true long-term effects. This means that the long term effects of marijuana could be nothing or bad. People who smoke a descent amount of weed periodically could be completely safe or could have harmful effects to their brain when they get older. Personally I would not take the risk, but it seems like many people in America ignore the risk or they simply don't know the potential consequences. I think the latter is more common now days because I have heard many people say that smoking weed has zero risks. I have heard some people say it's even good for you. I don't know where people got these ideas but they obviously haven't researched enough because there are hundreds of articles out there debating about the pros and cons of smoking weed and frankly there is no right answer yet.
Do you think people who smoke marijuana don't know the possible long-term effects or they just don't care about them?

Prioritizing Visual Aspects

    When I was in New Orleans with my family the past week, I was surprised by the number of street performers I encountered, each one of them with different talents. One performance that I saw outside when I was in a restaurant particularly drew my attention, which was a man just standing with his dog laying on the ground. The dog was just laying on the ground, facing upward and was holding a bunch of dollar bills in his hand. Within in a couple minutes, there was a big crowd around the man and the dog. There was a different performance going on right by the man and the dog, which was a group of people playing jazz. The number of people watching this performance was considerably smaller than the number of people around the man and the dog. The man and the dog was probably there for  20 minutes and then left, whereas the musicians were still playing and they have already been playing for a long time too.
    I thought it was very ironic seeing this sight because the two performances obviously had different levels of effort and skills required but the one with significantly less effort was making much more money than the other one simply because it involved a cute animal that everyone liked. People decided to give their money to the man and the dog instead to the musicians simply because everyone love cute animals.
    I think this shows the basic thinking of the people in America which is that they get interested in the visual aspects of things more than anything else. The dog was more visually appealing than the musicians playing jazz. I think this thinking can be seen in various other situations. It can be connected to what we have been learning in class, the inequality of African Americans. The unequal treatment of African Americans because of the darkness of their skin could have been an extension of Americans' tendency to judge on the visual aspects.
    Do you think American people prioritize visual aspects more than other aspects?