Turner Diaries

The book, “The Turner Diaries” is a book by William Luther Price. It is a book in which the author has a dream of the world being totally white, he actually uses the term “white world.” So, the author goes on and on throughout the book about how he wishes the world was completely white and that there were no non-whites left in the world. The author also talks about a global genocide. His global genocide leads to the termination of all non-whites, and even Jews. The movie dealt with white supremacy and revolution. In the book the people are said to be bombing buildings such as FBI headquarters, and continue on to create terrorist acts against the world. This book was said to have an influence on the Oklahoma City bombing.
This book relates back to Brodkin’s chapter which was entitled, “How the Jews became white.” Although in the book the Jews are not on the same level as the whites, in this chapter Brodkin talks about how the Jews make their way to the top of the economic ladder. In the chapter Brodkin talks about the hard work and effort that the Jews had to use to get through all of the problems that they had to deal with. The Jews were treated poorly, and the book deals with the way they were treated. Much like Hitler and the Holocaust, the book wants a global genocide which is a total wipe-out of a race or ethnic background.
This book was very interesting, and made me think of what the world would be like if there was only one race, white. How would the world be different? There would be no racism because everybody would be white. There would be no segregation or slavery, because everybody is white. This book made me appreciate the world as it is and how strange it would be if the world was indeed only one race and that was white.

LFO- Summer Girls

The music group LFO was popular back in my middle school days. They were a one-hit wonder pop singing group that won all the hearts of teenage boys and girls. The most popular song that this group came out with was unquestionably entitled “Summer Girls.” This was a song that was very upbeat and very catchy. The words were easily understood therefore people could sing along with the song and have fun with it. There were a few lines in this song however that I found interesting. The first line is at the end of the third verse. The singer says, “You look like a girl from Abercrombie and Fitch.” I believe that the writer of these lyrics knew about the “look” that all Abercrombie members have and that they are all the same. He knows about the style that these girls have and how they buy into the thoughts of the company. In another line he says “I like girls that wear Abercrombie and Fitch,” and with a little stretch of my imagination I came up with the songwriter had a thing for the models that worked there and that he only would be interested in Abercrombie models.
This song obviously relates to the article by McBride, “Why I hate Abercrombie and Fitch.” The article is all about how Abercrombie people are better than everyone, and how they do not treat people the same. But, that is a different story. This time the part of the article we are going to focus on is what McBride calls “the look.” The same look that all of the models and members have, and the policies and rules that the company makes up for their employees to follow on. The look that is supposed to be classic, and natural. The look that does not involve gold jewelry or afros, the same look that involves it’s members to wear appropriate undergarments, however none of the pictures that they show have the models wearing anything let alone underwear. The company creates this image that sex sells, and maybe that is why they are so successful. But what I do not understand is what does a half naked woman, and a man with no shirt on have to do with clothes. I mean if they are not wearing any how can they be advertising. It is not about the clothes. It is about the look that the models have.
I am personally not a fan of Abercrombie. I have friends who love the place, but me personally I don’t have the audacity or the money to shop at that store. Just walking through the halls at my high school was enough of a Abercrombie fashion show for me. I am not a fan of the clothing line or the look that their company supposedly produces.

Neil Young- Cortez the Killer

Neil Young was a greater musician. He sang about many different things, and was passionate about different subjects. In one of his songs he shows that. In his song entitle, “Cortez the killer,” Neil Young sings about Cortez in search of land, willing to kill anything or anyone that he sees to find land. The first two verses of the song go like this, He came dancing across the water
With his galleons and guns
Looking for the new world
In that palace in the sun.

On the shore lay Montezuma
With his coca leaves and pearls
In his halls he often wondered
With the secrets of the worlds.

And the final verse of the song is:

He came dancing across the water
Cortez, Cortez
What a killer.

This song is I believe is well related to the very first chapter that we read. The chapter about Christopher Columbus, coming to America in search of land and gold and spices, Columbus is said to be a man who would stop at nothing to get what he needed and what he wanted. He wanted to find gold for the king of his country. And his king told him that he did what ever it took to find gold, even if that meant killing thousands of Indians to take their land. The line where it says he came dancing across the water with his galleons and guns, I think that is much related to Columbus because he came over with force to complete his task.
This is a song that when I first read it I could not believe how much it was like the Columbus article. It was almost like the author wrote the chapter about this song. It was strange. But, this is a good song, and a song about how people will go to great lengths to get what they need and do what they need to do, no matter the cost.

Chuck and Larry

The movie “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry,” is about two men played by Kevin James, and Adam Sandler, and they are both New York City firemen who are best friends and will do anything to save each others lives. In the first part of the movie the two partners are shown walking through a house which just recently had a fire put out of. And they are doing a search in the house and suddenly Chuck falls off of the second story, Larry then goes on to lay on top of Chuck protecting him from falling debris that would simply kill him. In the next scene they are both shown lying in a hospital together side by side, and Chuck goes on and on to Larry about how he saved his life and he would do anything to repay him. Later on in the movie we find out that Larry has a late wife and that he is in trouble with the pension department. He is afraid that if he dies his children will be left with nothing. So, Larry comes up with the plan to get what he calls a “domestic partnership,” with Chuck and that way he can reap the benefits if Larry does indeed die. However, to make this official the two of them need to get married. They are next shown taking a trip to Niagara Falls to become married. They get married and short thereafter the whole world finds out that they are “gay” because they are photographed at a gay rally party. Once, all of their fellow firemen and the people of New York get wind of this everything for them changes. They are soon treated differently, his fellow firefighters no longer want to play basketball with them, and especially they do not want to shower with them. Also, the people of the city change, Chuck is referred to as a whore in the movie and once everybody finds out he is gay, he can not find a girl to save his life. The whole world changes for them when the world finds out that they are gay in this movie.
This movie relates back to the course material which was Privilege, Oppression, and Difference. The last word of this title is what this movie mainly has to do with. Difference, being different from others makes some people uncomfortable, just like in the movie, once people found out that they were gay, nobody wanted to be around them. Nobody wanted to hang out with them because they were afraid that they would “hit on them, or start to feel them weird and become attracted to them.” “For all its popularity, the idea that everyone is naturally frightened by difference is a cultural myth that, more than anything, justifies keeping outsiders on the outside and treating them badly if they happen to get in.” This is a perfect quote. Saying that people are afraid of becoming what others are.

Hud.gov

http://www.hud.gov/faqs/faqfairhousing.cfm


There are many people who are unfair in the world, some treat people differently for many different reasons. Some are in more important aspects of life than others. And some are just silly in why they act the way that they do sometimes. The website hud.gov shows a perfect example of this current happening. Hud.gov is the website for the governments U.S. Department for Housing and Urban Development. And what this site is all about is finding houses and places to live for all people no matter their race or gender or sexual preference. There is a commercial that the website shows that is very shocking, and opens eyes every time that someone sees it. In the commercial there is a white male sitting at a desk talking on the telephone. He seems to be a telemarketer, but that is beside the point. Anyways, this man is talking on the phone to what seems to be a landlord for an apartment building nearby where he is. He calls the woman and first he speaks in a Latino, or Spanish accent, he tells the woman on the phone that he is looking to rent out an apartment that she owns. She realizes that the man is of Spanish decent and denies the man. Next, he is shown speaking in a Arab voice, saying his name is Kumar. He asks the lady about the same apartment and once again she denies him saying that it is already leased out. After that he calls back in an African American voice saying his name is Tyrone Washington. And once again he asks about the apartment on Front Street. The lady once again says no to him and claims it is already vacated. He also calls and says that he is handicapped, and guess what? He is denied again. Finally at the end he calls and says that his name is Graham Wellington, seeming to be a very high class, white male. He asks about the same apartment again, and this time the woman says that the apartment is available. This is not right in more ways than one.
This commercial I believe relates to the Abercrombie and Fitch article. It is some what of a stretch, but after I read the article again it came to me that this site and this article were common. The article talks about unfair hiring laws, and how the company has rules that they abide by. Also the article talks about how there are no black models anywhere in the company, saying that all of the black workers are used in stock rooms, behind the scene types of workers. The company showed unfairness towards people of color, proving that they were treated unfairly because of the color of their skin. Much like the article the commercial is showing unfairness to people of color. The woman on the phone will not allow a person of color to rent out one of her apartments. So, she just like in the article is showing that people of color are not treated fairly because they are non-white.
The first time I saw this commercial it had an impact on me. It impacted me because I knew that this was really how the world is, and how people are treated even now. It showed that people of color are not equal to whites, and that even now people are discriminated against even if they mean no trouble, they are associated with that ethnic group and are treated differently because of it.

Guess Who

The movie Guess Who stars Ashton Kutcher, a white male who is dating Zoë Saldana, a black female who goes to meet her parents who also are black. The movie begins when they are on their way to meet her parents; her father who is played by Bernie Mac is not understanding of why his daughter is dating a white guy. He is not accepting of Kutcher because of his skin color, he does not want a white man to marry his daughter because he does not think it is appropriate. Throughout the film Kutcher and Mac are shown at each others throats from scenes to where they are racing go carts, to them sitting in a car together listening to the song, “Ebony and Ivory.” So, throughout the movie they have their differences and even though Kutcher’s future father-in-law says that he does not see black and white he sees the man inside, everyone knows that isn’t true including Kutcher who has to overcome that in the movie to earn his respect. Also, later in the movie after Bernie Mac loosens up to Kutcher a little, they are shown sitting at the dinner table where Ashton is cracking up the family by telling black jokes in front of everyone. Well in short the first few were funny but after awhile they started to cross the line, in turn upsetting everybody at the table.
This movie I believe relates back to the novel we read Kindred. More so the first chapter of Kindred and how when Dana jumped in the river to save that stranger, even when she came out the father still pointed a gun at her head. This is shown in the movie because no matter what Kutcher does in the movie whether it is talk to Mac, or open up to him, or take him out to eat, Mac still does not trust Ashton therefore he is “holding a gun to his head.” The father in the book says that he was suspicious of Dana, and that maybe she was going to hurt his son. Well, just like that in the movie Bernie thinks that Ashton is up to no good, and is not suspicious of him because he feels like he is hiding something from everybody.
This was a good movie, with a good lesson behind it. Don’t be too quick to judge people just because they are different from you. Wait to learn about the person before any rash decisions are made about them. Try and find more out about them before you give them an unfair shake. This movie and this part of the chapter showed all of this.

The Amazing Racist

http://youtube.com/watch?v=P9ZgndfzZiw

The Amazing Racist is a man by the name of Ari Shaffir, and he is a comedian who likes to live dangerously. He had a series of short videos that he produced, and these videos were him performing racist acts towards others. There are videos of him being racist towards Asians, Muslims, Mexicans, and Black. Throughout the four videos Shaffir is shown doing outrageous things to the people of this descent. He films himself going to places such as Watts in East Los Angeles a place that is heavily black, and the video shows him driving through the streets of Watts wearing an entire Ku Klux Klan outfit. He encounters people on the street one black man even throws a brick at his car before Shaffir high tails it out of their. Later in the same video he is shown taking his KKK robe to a dry cleaner where the clerk is black and obviously becomes hostile about the situation. Throughout the entire black video he is shown wearing his robe around gas stations and dry cleaners everywhere. In the video about Mexicans, he is once again in L.A. this time he walks into a Mexican restaurant wearing an authentic Mexican outfit. He has his mini guitar with him strumming away and singing to the workers of the Mexican restaurant. He goes on giving the men a hard time by telling them not to work to hard and to take more breaks. Later in the video he goes to find illegal immigrant workers, and tells them he has a job for them to do, they hop in his truck and he drives them to the local immigration office and obviously the men take off running. You get the idea of these videos.
This relates to the class because it deals with racism as a whole on an everyday type basis. This guy goes around driving to different places acting like an idea trying to get himself into trouble. He wants to see if he can get a rise out of these people so he starts agitating them. This goes back to the movie ethnic notions. It deals with how people treat others, who do not look like them. They do not treat people the same because they are of a different race. So, he thinks that it is funny to do these mean things to other people but it really isn't just like in the film when the black people were treated differently, like the man who couldn't even get into a bar without going with a white person. All of these ideologies relate back to each other.
Personally, I think this guy is an idiot, and I want to see the video where he gets his ass kicked. He deserves it. He needs to get a pounding because this is no way for a person to act.

Glory

The movie Glory is based on Colonel Robert Shaw leading the first group of black soldiers into war. Shaw, who is played by Matthew Broderick, goes against all of his orders and against all odds to lead his soldiers into war. The soldiers, who were all former slaves, and all of them never been to war, and most of them illiterate had to learn to fight before they were prepared to go to war. As the war goes on the north decides that they want to make an experiment out of the newly acquired black volunteer soldiers. So, they hire an all white officer corps to train the men. The platoon has many issues that they have to deal with throughout the movie that include not having supplies, and not getting the respect they deserve to go into war. They want to prove that they can fight just as good as the white soldiers can, and they are out to prove that point.
This goes back to Chapter 8 of Zinn. It goes towards the point that Shaw is saying he is one of the good ones. He is special because he is the leader of the blacks, so he isn’t bad. He is one of the good guys, so he is different. Although it is not directly stated in the movie I feel that it is strongly implied. He and his officers lead a group of all black troops, and the troops are made up as a joke to northern army. They never expected anything out of the 54th, but they were in for a big surprise.
This was an outstanding movie, another one of my favorites. Matthew Broderick does a great job in this movie portraying his character. I also think that it displays a sense of truth. I was not around during the time of the Civil War, but I bet that there was something like this really going on during this time. The people of the war found volunteer blacks to create a platoon that needs to get ready for the war. It raises eyebrows seeing what people can do when they are faced with adversity, and when they have their backs against a wall.

Don Imus

(CBS/AP) CBS announced Thursday that it has fired Don Imus from his radio program, following a week of uproar over the radio host's derogatory comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team.

"There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society," CBS President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said in announcing the decision.

One of those discussions took place at noon today with a coalition of leaders from the civil rights and women's movements, who said it was time for Imus to go, reports CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes.

"It's important that we stand with the women of Rutgers who are deeply hurt by the highly insensitive comments of Don Imus," said Marc Morial, CEO of the National Urban League.

It's a stunning fall for one of the nation's most prominent broadcasters. Time Magazine once named the cantankerous host as one of the 25 Most Influential People in America, and he is a member of the National Broadcaster Hall of Fame.

But Imus found himself at the center of a storm after he called members of the Rutgers team "nappy-headed hos" last week. Protests ensued, and one by one, numerous sponsors pulled their ads from Imus' show. On Wednesday, MSNBC dropped its simulcast of the program.

This was an article written about Don Imus, a radio broadcaster, who at the time was broadcasting news about the NCAA Women’s Final Four. The team he was referring to by calling them, “nappy headed hoes.” Was the Rutgers women who went on to lose in the championship game to Tennessee. His comments about the team found himself in a serious bind. He ended up getting fired from his job, he lost a lot of money for the company he was broadcasting for, and he caused a lot of commotion throughout the nation, with not just basketball fans, but African-Americans alike. He caught it from all angles after his comments, he received threats and hate mail, he got it all. I chose this article because it shows the idiocy that people have today. It shows how people do not think before they speak, and obviously don’t care about anyone but themselves.
This relates to the film we watched Ethnic Notions. It goes back to the names that the people on that film were called, and how they were treated. They were not treated like humans in the movie. In the movie the whites treated the blacks, as if they had no feelings. They treated them as if they were not going to get upset if they said the things that they did. Similar to the Imus situation, Imus thought that the women would not get upset. He thought that it would not offend them, when in reality it did. And now he is out of a job and all because he did not think before he spoke. Also now, the coach for Rutgers and the players are still affected , and have not completely forgiven Imus for his comments. Just like how some African Americans have not forgiven some white people for the ways that they treated blacks.
Don Imus put himself into a very tight situation with his comments, and in the end he dug a hole to deep. He could not get himself out of the mess that he had gotten himself into.


"CBS Fires Don Imus Over Racial Slur." CBS News. 12 Apr. 2007. 7 Oct. 2007 .

Media Portfolio-Remember the Titans.

The movie Remember the Titans was a film that was released in 2000. It is a movie that is based on a true story, and it is the story of a high school football team in Alexandria, Virginia. The setting is in 1971 and the high school T.C. Williams was desegregated just before summer camp was ready to take place. T.C. Williams hires a black head coach played by Denzel Washington, to take over as head coach of the football team that turns out to be half white, and half black. Coach Boone (Washington) juggles racial hatred from the locals and racial debates on his own football team about who should be starting and who belongs where. The team starts off the summer camp with a lot of problems still relating back to racial tension, but throughout the camp with a lot of fighting and arguing, the last night before the camp was to be over, they came together on the field. Then, once they returned home from camp the town, and the players parents thought that the players had been, “brainwashed,” because they came home singing and chanting alongside one another. There is another point in the movie when a restaurant owner does not allow the black football players to eat as his restaurant. The team showed adversity by blocking out the problems off the field to deal with the problems on the field, and in the end going on to win a state championship and finishing their season at a perfect 13-0. The movie overall portrays a lot of racial tension and the problems that arouse from it.
This movie relates to the classes first reading which was by Zinn and how Columbus came to America in search of gold for his country. The chapter was about Columbus taking over the country and doing what he needed to do to get his job done. This movie also shows that image. Coach Boone came into the school with his back against the wall, and he did what he had to do to get his job done. He did not care about race or skin color or anything, he wanted to win and he was going to play the players who were going to help him win. No matter what the consequence, he was not there to win a popularity contest in the movie, he did not care if they were “black, white, blue, green, or orange,” he was going to do what he needed to, to win.
` This is one of my favorite movies, and without a doubt one of the most inspirational movies I have ever watched. Seeing high school kids, overcome and deal with the hand that they had been dealt is overwhelming to see. The way that the team dealt with the situation, even with the town against them, overcame adversity, and went on to a successful season.