Subliminal Messaging

    While discussing the interesting and truthful perspective on how Barbie objectifies women, a sudden idea popped into my head. Not only do their "giant breasts and high-heeled feet"(Prager 354)  objectify women and sexualize their appearance, but Barbies may also subliminally tell boys it's okay to mistreat women. As a child, my keenest memory of Barbie is mutilating the head. Due to fear of ridicule, little boys often feel the need to act manly, which often entails ripping the head off of Barbies ( a way of letting others know that they don't ever want to play with girl toys). This is just another example of how Barbies are not appropriate for children. However, on the subject of subliminal messages in childhood, a few months ago I heard on NPR that by telling first and second graders to circle the differences between two pictures or to find the odd one out of a pattern, it teaches kids that being different is bad. People often have the urge to fit in, and when you tell kids that things that are different should be pointed out, it subconsciously tells them different is bad. The only way to undo this subliminal brainwashing is simply awareness, and Emily Prager does an excellent job unmasking the toxicity towards the image of women Barbie emulates.

Slavery

    Although slavery has been eradicated from America, it's still an issue in other places around the world. People generally assume since slavery is no longer an issue in America, it isn't an issue anywhere else. However, it is. There are more slaves today than there have been at any other time in history. It's estimated that there are somewhere between 21 to 30 million slaves in the world (freetheslaves.net). The slaves today don't have any chances of escaping either. Because of technology advances, security cameras and other high tech equipment can constantly monitor the slaves and prevent them from ever escaping. Any amount of cunningness, "the only weapon of the weak"(Jacobs 556), is not enough to escape such inescapable conditions. Why is there slavery still? The same reason there were slaves in the past. Corporations would much rather outsource their work to foreign countries if the labor is cheaper, and the cheapest labor possible is straight up slavery. People these days idolize money. Holidays like the 4th of July, Christmas and Thanksgiving are all pretty much just opportunities for businesses to host super sales and other market actions. The value of holidays has gone down.  Although not as extreme as Frederick Douglass's The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro, everyone is slowly becoming alienated from such celebrations. We can change this, however, by simply celebrating each holiday for its original purpose. Also, boycotting any sort of “holiday special sale” going on would let the corporations know that Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful, not a time to buy a super mega ultra portable vacuum cleaner. If we boycott these holidays and spread the word about the ongoing issue of slavery, we can eventually end slavery in other countries too.

 

Source: https://www.freetheslaves.net/page.aspx?pid=348

Goodbye

    The Scarlet Letter is finally over! Oh, I didn't mean for that to sound too excited but in more of a sense of closure. As something ends, people often reflect on how such stories or events have affected them. Many times there is an illusion that they will never forget what they have just experienced and it will change their lives forever. However, to be honest, The Scarlet Letter will be but just a faint dot on the collective collage of memories harvested from 11 AP; it will serve as "a motto and brief description of our now concluded legend"(Hawthorne 259). Sure I'll occasionally reference the symbolic A in colloquial conversation or in my essays to seem somewhat knowledgeable, but that's about it. It's like in the real world, when you say goodbye to other things. One of my friends, Josh, moved to Texas a few years ago. We were pretty good friends, both growing up together and always hanging out at church, but we both knew that communication would wither away and eventually die out. Now we're simply Facebook friends. The same goes with going off to college. As we slowly move towards graduating high school, the reality of moving on seems to become more clear. Only a few of my closest friends will remain my friends as we go off to college, the rest becoming mere acquaintances. So as we depart from The Scarlet Letter, I will feel no sadness, for it has helped me
grow as a literary student through those two totally not awkward seminars, countless analyzes of hieroglyphic-like diction, and the identification of symbols that I couldn't possibly have pointed out by myself.  Au revoir, Hawthorne, au revoir.

And belt commercials are just a waist of time.

Guilt.

After talking about how Hester's reputation is starting to change in a positive way, I was suddenly reminded of the Wong Fu short, Just a Nice Guy.

Her selfless deeds are similar to Nick, the main character; they're both constantly helping others, while putting aside their own needs. However, as nice as these deeds are, they're not easy to deliver. Hester's "blameless purity of her life" (Hawthorne 157) while marked with the scarlet letter is her way of repenting past sins. Because she was deemed an adulterer, she forces herself to become selfless and tries to outweigh good against evil. This bring out a positive result;however, Dimmesdale tries to keep his sin a secret, and the guilt ultimately causes him to preach powerful messages. This also has a positive outcome, but Dimmesdale's internal guilt is far greater than Hester's. Therefore, it's better to admit your guilts and ask for forgiveness than to just wallow in secrecy. One time I broke my dad's iPad case, but I didn't tell him about it. I felt bad because he thought he was the one who broke it. We both ended up feeling bad, when I should have been the only one feeling bad. Therefore, I feel like once Dimmesdale admits his misdeeds, his guilt will eventually disappear and then Hester, Dimmesdale and Pearl can live happily ever after. (until they eventually die of random ailments like the common cold because of their super ratchet and demonic doctors)

And those cemetery commercials. It was a grave mistake making those

Religion

    I've always been exposed to Christianity my whole life, even though my parents became Christian when I was in fourth grade. As a toddler, my parents sent me to a Christian preschool because they thought Christians would be nice people. There I remember going over the picture bible numerous times. Stories about Adam and Eve, Noah and the Ark, and Jesus. As an ignorant child, I thought nothing of it. They seemed like fictional stories, but I was told to believe. As time went on, Christianity faded from my life. However, I was brought to church by a friend in third grade. I went just for the social aspect, but I still paid attention to the lessons and sermons. Eventually, I chose to accept Jesus and became a Christian. As a Christian, we are told to share the gospel and get others to believe in Jesus. However, I know if someone tried to convert me into a Buddhist, whatever they said would go through one ear and out the other. Christians are often seen as these passive aggressive people who want to shove the bible down your throat and convert you into a Christian, just like in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God; Edwards demands the reader to convert or suffer eternally "in the flames of hell"(Edwards 120). Converting someone to a different religion should not be aggressive. Imagine if someone told you that whatever you believed in is wrong and that the beliefs you've grown up with have all been lies. Most people wouldn't want to listen to what they're saying. I know I wouldn't. Although a quarter of American adults have converted their faith, it's still not a majority. It's fine if someone shares the basics of their religion with someone else, but to demand submission is simply preposterous. 

Article about religion statistics:
http://religions.pewforum.org/reports

Those window commercials are so transparent

ABC: American Born Chinese

    As someone who might be considered an "ABC", life is pretty interesting. Although some may find it weird, outside of school, I only hang out with asians. It's not because I hate other races, it just happens to be that all my parents' friends are also asian, and their kids are asian. Although I've never experienced discrimination as bad as Brent Staples has, I've definitely experienced it. For example, if I were to compare my life to Brent Staples, my version of being racially profiled as "an accomplice in tyranny" (Staples 205) would be being considered a nerd. People sometimes rail me for taking Chinese when I AM chinese, but Americans take English classes; why can't I cash out on my previous hard work? It's not like people are born with vast knowledge of their culture's language. I went to Chinese school every saturday morning from kindergarten to eighth grade. Hard work brings results, and I think an A or two is well deserved. Maybe I'm being self righteous but whatever. Sometimes people discriminate or berate others based on a certain tradition of their ethnicity, when in reality, they themselves have a similar tradition. People are often too quick to judge others. For example, Key and Peele's uses a comedic hyperbole to illustrate this issue.

Although cliches are frowned upon, I truly believe that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. I know I've often felt bad for judging someone, then finding out more information on the situation. As Gandhi once said, “The only difference between man and man all the world over is one of degree, and not of kind, even as there is between trees of the same species. Where in is the cause for anger, envy or discrimination?” 

I just can't wrap my head around those hat commercials.

Hunger. A Motivator for Success

    As depicted in Wall's The Glass Castle, hunger (physical or metaphorical) can be a direct motivator for knowledge. Jeannette's physical hunger has a direct correlation to her hunger for knowledge. Due to the fact that her parents often fail to provide food for the family, she strives to distance herself  from such situations. Whether its rooting "through the bathroom wastebaskets for food" (Walls 232) or getting a job, physical hunger pushes her to adapt. In this case, adapting means gaining knowledge. She soul desires knowledge to be able to find a job in New York and abandon the life of poverty. Although Jeannette tries to avoid it, hunger is what drives her to eventually move to New York and live a stable life. Also, looking at a real world scenario, 53.5 percent of Harvard undergraduates come from families that have an annual income of less than $200,000 (Lanning). That's not poverty level, but there are bound to be quite a few individuals that are close. This shows that success is not bred from past success. It can be formulated from the hunger of knowledge, which is often stemmed from hunger for a better life. Sometimes those who live "the good life" often lack the required hunger for knowledge in order to find success. Due to their current satisfactory lives, they subconsciously assume that as long as they don't fail out of school, their lives will be just as successful and luxurious. However, this is not the case. Their parents probably worked their butts off in order to achieve such a state of nirvana. The present doesn't represent the future, so people should strive for knowledge, even if they're not hungry (physical or metaphorical) at the moment.






Article about Hardvard student income: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/1/26/diversity-lack-figures-evidence-harvard/

Have you seen the drilling comercials? They’re really deep