From The Color Purple

Near the end of the letter, it seems as if Shug is trying to convince the narrator that God does not equal man. She seems to be trying to set the narrator straight, and make her come to peace. The narrator seems to understand the concept and for a moment, things look like they are wrapping up nice and neat. Then Shug starts talking about how man has corrupted everything, and he's trying to "contaminate" everything. This gets the sense that she is trying to say that it isn't Gods fault that everything in the narrator's life is turning to sh*t. God likes to watch things happen, and "enjoys all feelings." This sounds a bit preachy, but the narrator is gets a sense of relief by writing to God, and Shug seems to be trying to help her down her religious path.
Sadly, it doesn't seem like Shug succeeds at doing so. Shug tells the narrator that when men try to get in the way of her prayers, push them aside and try to "conjure up flowers, wind, water, a big rock." (2457) The narrator writes in her letter, "I hardly pray at all. Every time I conjure up a stone I throw it." She seems very resilient the letter doesn't really wrap up everything in a nice neat little package. It appears that she doesn't want God in her life and every time she thinks up something that reminds her of him she just chucks it aside and doesn't look back. She doesn't appear to be angry, in fact she seems a little content in her "decision".

Final Thoughts on the Movie

During the course of the movie, there were several things that seemed to pop out at me. Most of them impressed me, and I was very surprised on how good the movie was, being sort of an art film. One thing that I was impressed at was how there was only one actress who played every single character, which is quite impressive. She has to have some talent to play 10+ characters who all have very different personalities. This also made me feel tired of the same actress though. After a while, I became bored with how she looked and hungered to see a new face playing a character. Each character represented in the film seemed real, which was probably due to the environment they were in. Instead of just interviewing these people in the same room or the same setting, they were interviewed in their natural environment. Some were eating, some were on the phone, some were behind fancy desks in big chairs, it all seemed like a real conversation with these people. The format of the movie was very unique and creative.
The actual subject matter that they discussed in the movie disturbed me a little bit. I was surprised me that there was this much racial tension in New York between Blacks and Jews. I had no idea that Blacks and Jews had it out for each other, and it was completely bewildering to me. I thought that it was just a simple mistake that a Jewish man ran over the little black kid, but I do believe that an apology should have been in order. Instead of actually confronting the problem, everyone just tried to force it down and not really deal with the problem. Tensions would inevitably raise to a boiling point and eventually violence and hatred would continue on. I think this should be a lesson to the U.S. by saying we need to actually talk about and study racism instead of just ignoring it.

Blacks vs Jews Movie Blog

There appears to be two extreme sides presented in the movie. The Jews have done wrong because a Jewish man ran over a small boy or the Blacks have done wrong because they attacked and killed a Jewish scholar. From the Black's perspective, it's the Jews who have started this whole feud in the first place. It was the Jewish man who was driving the car's fault. Them killing the Jewish scholar was just a retaliation to what happened. It was in a sense to send the Jews a message that if they mess with them, they aren't afraid to fight back. They probably also thought that killing one of their kind would be the only way to get the Jew's attention. If the Jews didn't pay attention to them while they were begging for help from the Jewish ambulance, then maybe violence is the path they need to take. And what better way than to get someone's attention than to kill one of their innocents?
The Jewish perspective is that it was just one guy who was probably drunk who made a mistake. The scholar had nothing to do with what happened, and it was completely uncalled for. Their ambulance was only supposed to be used for Jews due to the strict medical procedures they followed. Their argument seems like it's saying, "Hey man, why are you attacking us? We as a whole didn't do anything wrong." While the blacks argument seems like. "YOU started it, it's YOUR fault." Personally, I think my stand is leaning a little bit over to the Jewish side, and I think that both sides just need to drop it. Gandhi once said, "An eye for and eye makes the world blind." If the blacks call for an act of revenge then the Jews will call for a retorting act and the blacks will call for another act of revenge and so on. Instead of fighting over and over and over about who's fault this is they should settle their differences and just get on with their lives. This is very difficult yes, but just fighting over it for years and years isn't exactly the way to go.

Malcolm X

In the very beginning (or the middle, wherever we started at) of Malcolm X, the narrator spends a great deal of time talking about books. While I myself am not much of a reader, I can understand his thirst for knowledge. He reads everything from German philosophers to black Spanish Jews, which surprised me to a certain extent. He seems to be very open and taking all kinds of different information and ideas and filtering out what is important, which is very impressive. He seems surprisingly literate for a negro who lives in the 1920s-1960s, and uses examples that include examples like British anthropologists and very clever theories.
The main point he begins to talk about is "the lie" that whites have been telling the blacks over so many years. Apparently, history has "been so 'whitened' by the white man" (1869) and he I get the sense of some real self power that the narrator is trying to express. I almost feel like I'm being yelled at when I read the lines of the text, as if the narrator is on top of a soapbox or behind a podium belting out his beliefs. In a way, I respect that about his work, he doesn't sugar coat anything and somehow makes me want to keep reading what he is trying to convey. It's a strange, but effective way to get a reader to feel engaged in the text.
From the beginning, it seemed as if the narrator only had one thing to teach, and that was "the white man is the devil." (1871) He continues this slaughter of Caucasians by saying this like "Negroes have never met one white man who didn't either take something from them or do something to them." (1871) At first, this shocked me, and, in a way, pissed me off a little bit. I guess this is because of my skin color, but then I thought how he must have been treated back then and how he was writing in a time where equality wasn't something that was easy to come by. The rest of the text seemed to be his experience with being a Muslim, which was intriguing and confused me a lot. This piece of writing wasn't your MLK speech, it feel like a kick to the teeth while I was reading it, which I hope the author was going for.

Sonny's Piano

In the short story "Sonny's Blues," when Sonny first starts to play the piano, he seems to struggle with hit. The violinist, Creole, seems to hold Sonny back and keep a tight leash on Sonny. In a way, it seems like Creole is holding back Sonny for the first song. "I just watched Sonny's face. His face was troubled, he was working hard, but he wasn't with it." Then the next songs starts to kick in.
During the second song, the narrator begins to understand what the music does for Sonny. The only thing he knows prior to this is that most people don't really feel the music that they are playing. When he watches Sonny play, he can see the emotion and pain that he is feeling when he plays his songs. He says, "Sonny moved, deep within, exactly like someone in torment. I had never before thought of how awful the relationship must be between the musician and his instrument. He has to fill it, this instrument, with the breath of life, his own. He has to make it do what he wants it to do." He realizes that the piano is simply just a piano, and it's Sonny who creates the music. The piano is just a tool to let Sonny let out whatever he has bottled up inside and lets him express who he is and who he wants to be. He says, "Then they all came together again, and Sonny was part of the family again. I could tell this from his face. He seemed to have found, right there, beneath his fingers, a damn brand-new piano." When he plays the piano, he becomes part of a "family," which helps Sonny feel at home and and rest.

Ethics

The word "ethics" means a set of moral principles, esp. ones relating to or affirming a specified group, field, or form of conduct. For most people, your ethics are determined on what kind of group you tend to involve yourself, what kind of heritage you come from, and what your elders/parents/teachers tell you what is right and wrong. There are simplistic and taboo ethics like don't steal, cheat, kill people, etc. But when looked at more closely, there might be complications to these taboo ethics like you can't kill people, UNLESS they are trying to kill you or even it's o.k. to steal things, BECAUSE I need them to survive. These loopholes are influenced by the environment that you or some other force surrounds yourself in.
For me, I generally try to surround myself with people who have good intent. I have my share of generally taboo ethics like the ones that they teach me in church. These include don't be covetous, don't kill, don't cheat, etc. I try to obey these things and be a somewhat good-natured person, but not all moral principles are as clear cut and have a definite demarcation line to it. This normally happens when your peers or parents take hypocritical decisions. If your parents say not to do something and you see them doing it anyway, your perspective on the subject could completely change. Thoughts might come up like if it's o.k. for them to steal or cheat, then I can steal or cheat too, or because they are hypocritical and they don't put any worth into their teachings, why should I learn from them? The actions of others can greatly impact your ethics and either lead you down a good or bad path. A wise man once said, "A fool learns by his own mistakes, a wise man learns from others' mistakes." This implies that you should learn from your friends' and parents' guidance but you should do as they say, not do as they do. Follow their teachings and make your own decisions based on others' thoughts and opinions.

Hughes and McKay

Langston Hughes and Claude McKay are two great poets who have both similarities and differences between their works. Structurally, McKay’s poems have more of a very defined arrangement of ten syllables per line. Hughes is trying to have his poems look Shakespearean, and trying to add more worth to his poems to show to the white men. Hughes’s poems don’t really have much of a structure, like take for example “Mulatto.” The writing seems somewhat scattered about the page, but it ends up working out in an odd way. Hughes’s writing seems more laid back, like in “Theme for English B.” The poem seems almost like a half-assed poem turned in for English class, but it ends up having a twist ending.
Twist endings are actually a major similarity between Hughes and McKay their poems also discuss important African American issues (which makes sense because they are both African American poets/writers) during the Harlem Renaissance. Both of them talk about the city Harlem itself, both in their own way.
In most of McKay’s writings such as “America,” “To the White Friends,” and “If We Must Die,” he discusses how Blacks need to fight and prove to the whites that they mean business and want to be a part of this country. In “If We Must Die,” he states, “If we die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us through dead!” (1007) Hughes’s poems seem to disagree with McKay, and most of his pieces display the beauty of African race like in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and “The Weary Blues.” Hughes also discusses how they (the Blacks) should ask the whites how they could get along and succeed in arts. In “You are white- yet a part of me, as I am a pat of you. That’s American. Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me. Nor do I often want to be a part of you. But we are, that’s true! As I learn from you,? I guess you learn from me- although you’re older-and white- and somewhat more free.” (1310) Hughes is supporting the unity of the whites and blacks, and that is what he feels America is all founded on.