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?