Alex Leen
9/5/12
English 110, 11:00
Final Draft of paper 1 In the essay “Our Time” by John Edgar Wideman he often takes a break from the narrative to address that he has many problems as a writer. He does this to try to consciously address these problems and hopefully solve these problems. He believes that if these problems are not rectified he would destroy any chance he has at telling a truthful account of his brother’s story. To rectify these problems he employs a variety of unique techniques in his writing. Looking at these techniques it is not always 100% clear how these are fixing his problems. It is also evident that the way he is writing may be going against a lot of things we were taught in school about our writing. The
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The first of the three is Garth’s death. When Garth died he lost his best friend, one of the few people that he truly loved. After Garth died Robby got big into drugs, I think its cause he was depressed after the loss and wanted to forget. It was a major turning point in Robby’s life and in my opinion the most important of the three events that could have started the story. The second one is his own birth. People may wonder why this wouldn’t be the logical starting point seeing as how it’s his birth and makes sense chronologically. The reason this can be seen as starting point of his troubles isn’t because he was born so it could happen as you’d probably think. It’s because for as long as he could remember his birthday was overshadowed. It was right after Christmas so it always felt a little insignificant compared to the biggest holiday of the year. There were also the unfortunate events of death that seemed to follow his birthday around like a cloud. All of his Grandparents died near his birthday and that has to take a toll on you. To have your birthday associated with the deaths of loved ones must be extremely hard. The third and final possible starting point is his childhood home in Shadyside. Nothing particularly traumatizing happened in this passage but it’s still important none the less. In this he talks about how he grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood. He was around white people all the time and felt that they had it easier than him. Also
Page 9-13: He first starts how he was privileged as a white by talking about how he his family was able to easily gain an apartment with the help of his grandfather, who was established way before because he was white. Also the complex was segregated at first and so even after the end of the “apartheid” it was still hard for the people of color to come in. He then talks about how he was able to gain a sweet job which would lead to his stardom as an antiracist activist. But the only way he ever got this job was because he knew two people. Two people he met a Tulane, his college. And the fact that he was able to go to Tulane was in itself because of white privilege. It was because he was white that his mother was able to easily gain a loan. And this loan was only gained because his mother’s family being white was able to have a house to use for collateral for the loan.
While many obstacles get in the way of friendship, true friendship still lives, even in silence. In the book, The Chosen , By Chaim Potok, two boys, Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders, who are very religiously different and both raised in completely opposite ways, develops a deep friendship. Their friendship opens up their worldview to many other different viewpoints in life. The friendship between these two boys is one with great religious significance, starting off with destiny and Gods will. As Danny and Reuven’s Friendship develops, it teaches them to respond wisely to the values of the more complex and secular world. It also teaches the true value of friendship. Because Danny’s father, Reb
When he had arrived in Buffalo, Lewis’s first reaction to when they had finally reached his Uncle Otis’s home. “When we reached my Uncle O.C’s home and Dink’s house, I couldn’t believe it, They had white people living next door to them...on BOTH sides.” (Lewis and Aydin March Book 1: 43) Segregation in the north wasn’t a big deal to people in the north than it was in the south and from that he experienced a lot during that visit in the north. Once he had returned back home, he knew what was different now, he understood what the problem and differences were while he was up in Buffalo and at home. It came to him when school time was coming back around in the fall. “ In the fall, I started right the bus to school ,which should’ve been fun. But it was just another sad reminder of how different our lives were from those of white children.” (Lewis and Aydin March Book 1: 47) Between the black and white community, Lewis saw how “degrading” it was when it had came to school. They didn’t have the nice playground, the nicest bus, roads, and the ugly, sad sight of the prison full of black men and only black men, but he had managed to get pass all of the gloominess with a positive outlook of reading. “ I realized how old it was when we finally climbed onto the paved highway, the main road running east from Troy, and passed the white children’s buses..We drove past prison work gangs almost every day the prisoner were always
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has had as a strategy the development of space exploration. All missions from the most historical to those planned, have been directed under the same institution to enrich the scientific knowledge of the Earth, the solar system and the universe. However, the goals, the accomplishments and errors committed throughout the history of the space, technological advances and experiences in each of the missions, have been making the differences. The Apollo mission is an example of the first attempts to landing on the moon, and the planned Mars mission is an example for traveling to the Red Planet; both were created through NASA, but their goals, historical epoch
He discusses being a child and seeing his parents and other adults humiliated. I watch my father say, “yes-sir” to white teenagers. My mom and I were in the car
As with playing the “What If” game (asking “what if” incessantly to explore each aspect of a situation), so did a chain of events occur that caused this relationship to form.
He explains how it’s easy for people who have never seen or felt segregation to say wait but they have never got to see their vicious mob kill their mom or your brothers. They’ve never had police hit them or people drown your sister at a whim. When you must see your twenty million brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty amid an affluent society who constantly degrades them just based on the color of their skin. These explicit and emotional experiences offer an insight to people who don’t understand the pain of segregation to see what black people must deal with in their life on the
The data sets for problems 5 and 6 can be found through the Pearson Materials in the Student Textbook Resource Access link, listed under Academic Resources. The data is listed in the data file named Lesson 20 Exercise File 1. Answer Exercises 5 and 6 based on the following research problem:
“It was people and commercials trying to make him feel like he didn’t even matter, trying to make him feel like there was something wrong with being black”. Chapter 1 page 8
It all started in Gaithersburg, Maryland Where he grew up with his abusive Parents. His parents always abused drugs and alcohol. On top of that his mother was a racist. As an African American, “I never understood why my mother would start a family with an African American husband” (Logic). He said in an interview. Where he lived, there was always crime and robbery going on. Constant shootings
His first stop is New Orleans. Where he is shocked to the extent that he experiences racism and oppression. He is also comforted by the kindness he is shown by the black community. He then hitchhikes through the south,
The book As We Are Now, written by May Sarton, targets those concerned with the care of elderly individuals in nursing homes. In the book, Sarton artistically highlights the plethora of ongoing issues social workers face in their work as they attempt to provide quality care to the elderly population. The book is written as the memoirs of a very thoughtful elderly woman, Caroline Spenser, as she spent part of her life in a nursing home; and brings to light the lack of quality of care that elderly individuals received when living in such a facility in the 1970’s.
Later along in the story, we can even see the full extent of the effects from these experiences as it had stuck with him for a majority of his life. This fear of the white community had also given him a sense of respect towards them, but still did not fully learn the “proper way to act”. An example is shown in one job that he had, when he asked his employers if he could “learn something” about the job he was in due to how “The boss instructed these two to help me (the narrator), teach me, give me jobs to do, and let me learn what I could in my spare time”. Once he tries and reminds them about teaching him, this is seen as an attempt to “exceed his boundaries” and eventually has to leave this job. Like the last event, he explains the situation to his family and they also think the same thing as they had called him a “fool”, and
Time Time is defined as a measured or measurable period, a continuum that lacks spatial dimensions. This broad definition lacks the simple explanation that humans are searching for. There are many scientists, philosophers, and thinkers who have tried to put time into understanding terms. The aspects of time that we can understand are only based on what we can perceive, observe, and calculate. Every day we look at our watches or clocks.
Many people influenced and events my reading and writing development throughout my childhood from my mother, my elementary librarian, and Sesame Street, to getting my first pair of glasses. We all have defining moments in our lives where we can look back and say, “That moment changed my life.” This is the story of the defining moment that changed the way I read and write, and I learned it from a whale!