My Color Research Paper

Vibrant hues of orange and yellow were smeared together and they played with violent shades of red. The rising sun rested in a bed of golden rose, cotton clouds. Its rays of light spilling over the hills like pale orange paint. At least, that's what I imagined this sunrise would look like in a world without skyscrapers and other assorted buildings suffocating the horizon, sucking the life out of the beauty that nature gives us, and replacing it with smoke, oil, and the stench of our ever growing need to expand. Our need, humanity's need to leave no blade of grass behind, to cover every inch of the earth with pollution and man made roads and structures, is what is destroying the beauty that nature provides.

When I crossed by the snow covered sign that read “Welcome to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness National Park” and looked at what surrounded me, I was beside myself. I didn’t know that trees could ever be so beautiful. The towering trees were the perfect shade of dark emerald green, and the way the snow piled on them looked like painting. I thought I was living a fairytale. It was the most beautiful sight I have ever laid eyes on.

The Colored Junior College was established to provide an opportunity for African-Americans to receive college training. The Junior College progressed so fast that by 1931, it became a member of the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools and was approved by the Southern Association of Colleges. In the summer of 1934, the Houston School Board changed the junior college to a four-year college and the name to Houston College for Negroes. When the university opened its doors in September 1947, it had 2,300 students, two schools, one division and one college - the Law School, the Pharmacy School, the Vocational Division, and the College of Arts and Sciences. Responding to the changing times, in 1973, the 63rd Legislature designated Texas Southern University as a special purpose institution for urban programming. As a result, four more academic units were added - the College of Education, the School of Public Affairs, the School of Communications and the Weekend College.

Color fills our world with beauty. We delight in the colors of a magnificent sunset and in the bright red and golden-yellow leaves of autumn. We are charmed by gorgeous flowering plants and the brilliantly colored arch of a rainbow. We also use color in various ways to add pleasure and interest to our lives. For example, many people choose the colors of their clothes carefully and decorate their homes with colors that create beautiful, restful, or exciting effects. By their selection and arrangement of colors, artists try to make their paintings more realistic or expressive.

Many people have a concept of what color guard is about. People who dance at football games spinning flags, sabers, and rifles alongside with the marching band. But for me, color guard is much more than just

Auditioning for color guard my freshman year is without a doubt the best decision I’ve made throughout my high school career. My initial expectations were to simply have fun participating in a newly discovered hobby, but what came was so much more. Color guard has affected me in numerous ways, from what I’ve learned to how I conduct myself.

My eyes peeled open slowly and the bright sunlight flooded into my eyes, blinding me. I heard the sound of running water and felt the cold breeze flow over my body. I looked out of my hammock and in front of me was a beautiful waterfall and several towering, bright green trees. My friends whom were with me shortly awoke and we packed our things and set off on our first true day of hiking in the Appalachian mountains.

“Stay in your toaster!” With every move, the flag must stay right in front of our body and right behind our backs. This one simple rule is embedded in every guard girl’s mind. Color guard requires to do various actions at once. For instance, we must remember the sequence of the choreography, march in step, find the right drill spot, and smile. One simple mistake with a flag allows all eyes on you. As the guard girls performs with flags, there’s three different types of girls on the field. There is the hard worker, the slacker, and the hardworker and the slacker combined.

As we were one hour into our journey, I began seeing the huge Appalachian mountains. The mountains looked surreal. The closer that we got to Lake Placid the larger the mountains were. We passed a waterfall that was crashing down against the clear blue lake. The lake was a puddle that casted a reflection of the bright sun. It took a long drive to get there, but once we got there it was sunny and bright. We brought up our loads of clothing and then went down to the beach on Mirror lake. There was boundaries on the beach of where you could go. The boundaries were marked with a rope and buoys. We had not known about those boundaries, so we crossed them. Each time we crossed them we would get yelled and whistled at. We saw a rock that was underwater. We really wanted to go explore it, so we ended up being complete rebels. We would hold our breath underwater and go explore the rock, and once we ran out of breathe would swim as quickly as we could up to the rope and pull ourselves inbounds. It was fun swimming, but we got tired very quickly. We headed back to the hotel, and took a

Professor Fisher, in 2004, said that color affects human beings in many ways, on both the conscious and subconscious levels, every day of our lives. As Professor Fisher stated, color affects us so many times a day, that often times we don’t even realized it’s happening. Think about all the things you have done today, that in someway involved color. For example, think of a stoplight and what each color on it means; without those colors we would not have the technology of a stoplight and therefore our everyday driving wouldn’t be quite as easy.

The sunlight tinting the clouds with pink and golden hues reminding me of a Maxwell Parish painting I had once owned. There was a heavy fog and mist coming in off the Pacific Ocean into the San Francisco Bay I noticed that the fog clung to the bottom of the Golden Gate Bridge. Sounds of gulls screeching and fog horns moaning, issuing warning of possible danger are coming in off the bay overwhelmed my senses. I did not take the time to breath in this wondrous moment as I should have. It is only now though this reflection that I appreciate the beauty. I had a goal, a destination. I was a force of nature not to be deterred. So onward north I traveled passing monumental sites with a lackadaisical attitude. Not understanding that I needed to breath in, slowdown and enjoy the singular experience of the once in lifetime moments that were flying past me as I raced down the

I really agreed with Matthew because his views were spot on but also because I haven’t directly experienced colorism, but I’ve certainly benefited from it. As the daughter of an Amazigh man, my skin was already much lighter than other Arab Moroccans, but with my mother being a white woman, essentially the only thing that keeps me from being seen as 100% white was having a vaguely foreign but ultimately unidentifiable last name--and it’s no secret that whites are treated better than people of color. Hair that would otherwise be very curly is stilled, a hooked nose is smoothed, skin is lightened, and prejudice avoided because of my mother’s genes. I don’t look Arab. Thus, I don’t get the threats or the name-calling others do. That’s all within the realm of what I’ve seen personally.

Did I mention it had been raining? Not that this is unusual, but it was that sticky rain somewhere between mist and the heavy drops that cause radiating circles when they hit a puddle. I hate sticky rain. I could turn on the wipers and the windshield would be cleared, but in a matter of seconds, it is covered with splotches of water that would barely squeak off a windshield with a fresh coat of Rain-X. On this day the sky was gray spun sugar and the sticky rain washed away all colors from the surroundings with only yellowish spheres of lights forcing their brightness through. The dark roads, slick rocks, and stoic trees had a damp dullness surrounding them that made most people want to snuggle on the couch under a stadium blanket and watch a Hawks game. However, we chose to go out and explore in the rain and almost lost our way home.

When I want to feel safe and at peace with the world-at-large, I always find myself sitting on an expansive pond resting within a kayak. In my vision the daylight sun has already yielded itself to the calm twilight of the evening, taking the excitement of the day with it. The sharp contrast between the complexities of the world, and the simplicity of this scene set before me is one of the few thoughts that can bring my mind at ease in times of stress.