Q's Insecurity - Essay

Q molds himself into what he gathered others wanted him to be, therefore he is immensely insecure.

Q's instinct make him wary of his surroundings, yet fearful of the residents. When Q first arrives to the land where there are no dinosaurs, he does not know how to react. Q is aware of the reputation dinosaurs have and he ceases to wonder if the others know who he really is. After his first encounter with them, he thought, “... I would never have imagined it possible to talk like that with a non-dinosaur, and I was very tense...(pg. 98)” Q's instincts taught him to be wary of these creatures. Speaking to one so nonchalantly made him edgy and fearful. The fact that he was incredibly out-numbered added to his worries. Had he told them he was a dinosaur, what the non-dinosaurs resented most, they surely would have shunned him – or worse, killed him. Because of this, he is caught between two worlds in hopes of survival. To remain alive, he settled into his new habitat.

Q builds personal relationships that only intensify his insecurity. As Q settles into the life of a non-dinosaur, he becomes interested with one particular girl – FernFlower. When they conversed, she only told him of dreams she had of dinosaurs. Some were peaceful, others spine-chilling. He felt discredited over these dreams she had, yet he wanted to embrace her and be her comfort. He wanted to seize a moment of affection, but “[n]othing too intimate; [he] had never dared touch her (pg. 101).” Either of of fear or respect, Q decided not to clasp FernFlower the way he wanted. She may have dreamed of dinosaurs, but had she encountered a real one, her fondness of them would have shifted. Q knew this, so he continued to let her be convinced that he was a non-dinosaur, though the real Q was inside him, waiting to rupture. Soon enough, that happens.

Though Q is adjusting to the life of non-dinosaurs, his insecurities can no longer be confined inside him. Q continues to allow FernFlower to tell him of her dreams, but eventually he can bear no more. With a sudden burst of pride, he bursts out: “Why do you bore me with these dreams of yours? You can't dream of anything of sentimental nonsense! (pg. 107)” Though it is does harshly, Q finally allows his inner anger to come out as a dinosaur. After all the time he spent deceiving the non-dinosaurs, Q firmly tells FernFlower how he is through with her nonsense. By allowing his emotions to intensify within, his outburst only proved to others how dreadful dinosaurs really are.  

"Oh no that n**** didn't!" - Response Post

As the general public has made it to be - and in my own opinion - white people cannot say the N-word. Ale'ah Baaqee wrote in her blog:

“you can’t say that, your not black”, and then the [white] student said “Why not? If black people call themselves that than why can’t I” That’s when the debating started.

Any person with a common sense is conscious of the reality that white people are just forbidden from ever letting the N-word leave their lips - at least not when a black person is around. Where the debate begins is the differentiation between "nigga" and "nigger". What is okay and what is not?


The word "nigger" - as we all know - derived over two centuries ago. It was used throughout and long after slavery, as a derogatory word against African-Americans. For 200 years black people endured verbal abuse from white people, then in several decades to follow they battled to stop it.
Nigga on the other hand, is just a term used to address a friend; such as "patna", "homie", or "brah".


What bemuses me though, is why did our race fight for so long against this word and the terror behind it, only to persistently use it in our daily lives?
What inside gets us so dismayed when a non-African American uses it? I forced myself to envisage it...


Think about this: females call each other bitch all the time, no drama. Do we get frantic about it? No.
But the second a man calls a female a bitch, all hell breaks loose. 
Black people call each other nigga on a daily basis. But dare I say a white person does it, it's all bad. Some black people even get mad if another black person calls them "nigger", not nigga.
You see my parallelism there?

There is indubitably a distinction between saying "nigga", and "nigger", no matter whose mouth it leaves.
Personally, anybody who knows me knows that I do have a tendency to use the word nigga often. It is appalling and unacceptable and I am not proud of it, but whatever. According to most people, its only okay because I'm black. Does that make it okay for me to call my friend a bitch because I'm a girl? 


We - as in everybody - constantly use offensive words as common language, but turn around and get mad at the next person for doing the same thing. It's hypocritical.


The point of my response is: I personally do not believe it is acceptable for white people to use the N-word under any circumstances. Though, I question black people's use for it as well.


Think about THAT.

Haiku for Keiland Callum

Keiland is my friend.

Although we argue a lot.

He is really cool.

:)

My Friends :)

I decided to dedicate a post to each of my closest ASTI friends.
I love:
Tram Huynh
Vy Truong
Vannessa Berrios
Regina Moore
Ianna Willson
Pedro Vargas
Jackson Follrath
Manuel Carbajal
Camal Saleh
Jasmine Guillot
Elijah Mekwunye
Max Rohde
Saber Saleh
Justice Toailoa
Francis Cabotaje
Marco Powell
Cameron Leahy

Atlanta Riot of 1906 - The Cover-Up

Saturday, September 22nd, 1906 - the day thousands of white people joined together with pitch forks, guns, knives and their fists, and began attacking and killing every single African-American that was unfortunate to be in the downtown area of Atlanta. Every black person in sight was attacked with no mercy - all men, women, and even young children were clubbed to death my the mob of brutal whites. The violence continued for four long days, and although there were many more, only twelve blacks and two whites were announced dead. Not a single white person was punished.

Many local leaders covered up the extent of the crimes that were done and would not report the real amount of deaths, hoping to preserve Atlanta's reputation as a progressive place to live and do business. Because the heart of Atlanta had very high-rise banks and office buildings, it attracted many poor black people wanting better jobs and a better lifestyle for their loved ones. After a while, Atlanta had the largest black middle-class in America. There were also a few wealthy black Atlantans. The mob trashed it all. Blacks riding down the streets in cars were pulled out, beaten, and killed. Blacks who ran businesses had their shops dismantled and they too, were beaten to death. They destroyed nice houses and college universities, and assaulted every black person without warning. Had this gotten out into the public, Atlanta's reputation would have only been further damaged, which meant the economy would have slowly but surely began to collapse.

People don't think about the historical events that make up everything about them and this world; who we are, where we live, and where we come from. The Atlanta riot of 1906 molded change for all people of color because for hundreds of years those people have been discriminated, and taunted and brutalized by white people, and over those years they have prospered from it. African-Americans have risen above the hate and animosity that has been catapulted at them for many years, and used it to better themselves as people. Because they have not forgotten the past, all people of color have been able to live their lives as proud people. Society is made up of history, and when we don't know the basic facts of that history, we find ourselves trapped in the present day pop-culture world, oblivious to reality.

Bow Chicka Wow Wow - Words

My Top 10 Vocabulary Words are:

1. Acquisition
2. Criteria
3. Commission
4. Arbitrary
5. Intrinsic
6. Revenue
7. Validity
8. Prime
9. Fundamental
10. Clause

Change For Who? You? Nahhhh.

I love how I look; hair, smile, body, all of it. I love it even when I complain about it. I was really self conscious about how I looked in the past, and today I still am. But what I am grateful for is that I gained the ability to not give a damn what people say or think. Everyone says I am really short. Do I care? No, because why would I want to be really tall? Men don't like really tall women. I have small feet, but my shoes are cheaper. I have the most difficult hair on earth, but I deal with it.


The thing about society is that people - a lot of them being mostly women - want to alter something about their body. They don't appriciate what they have, they complain, then they try to change it. Some want to look like celebrities, some like their friends, who the hell knows. They may have a good or bad reason as to why, but most often it is media influence, peer pressure, or strictly unhappiness. Dumb right? What I believe people need to realize that everyone looks different for a reason. If everyone looked the same, why would we have the word originality?


For example, women are often unhappy with their breast size because: 


1. Men are much more attracted to larger breasts.
2. Women tend to feel better about themselves when their body is proportionate; when they look good, they feel good. 
3. Who can underestimate the power of cleavage?
But instead of trying to make them bigger, why not make small ones more appealing? Has society or the media made that impossible? Whether or not is has, women want to change.


I can admit, if I could change anything I wanted about myself, I would definitely take the opportunity. Who wouldn't? But people - once again, mostly women - tend to go to such great lengths to make themselves...a lot uglier than they were before, for what? I browsed the internet, and found a site full of men, women, and celebrities who went to extensive lengths to look good. 
( Check it out: http://www.onlinenursingdegrees.org/medical/plastic-surgery-fail.htm )


It's pathetic. Our purpose in life isn't to please the world, because if it was, life would be alot harder than it already is.

Response Post: "Swagga-Style"

So my initial response to the blog post "Swagga-Style" by Ale'ah Bashir-Baaqee, was that it definitely needed a tone change. The idea of Who defines style? was a good one, but the biased opinion was just not doin' it for me. Ale'ah, your analysis on who defines style did not match up with the amazing evidence you provided at the beginning about how style and fashion has changed over all these decades.


First off, who decides what "dressing black" is? Or "dressing white"?
For your information, the sagging fashion began in prison. This means that both black and white men in prison could have been rockin' it. It is often affiliated with gang fashion, hip-hop fashion, or the lack of a wearing a belt. It prison, it could have just been the fact that they didn't want to zip their outfits all the way up. 


The only reason the sagging fashion was - and is now - considered a "black thing", is that most often the men in prison come from rural neighborhoods, in which most black men are from. Fashion is definitely an expression of who people are. So let's think about this:


A black man from a ghetto neighborhood -  he has probably been to jail in his lifetime, and considering where he lives, he doesn't have much to be happy about. To express his frustration through style, he sags his pants to his knees and walks the streets with a mugg on his face. 
A white man from a ghetto neighborhood - because of his skin color, you would only assume the possibility that he has been to jail by the way he is dressed. He is in the same conditions as the black man, so he too, sags his pants to his knees, and walks the streets with a mugg on his face.


A white man doing this does not imply that he is trying to act or dress "black". He is simply expressing who he is and how he is feeling. The same thing applies for black people who wear clothes most white people wear. Why do they get away with that without question, I have no idea.


My final statement is this: style can be creative and expressive. Let's not question those who choose to keep it that way.

Ruby & Pedro - Opening Statement: Con - Born Gay?

Is sexual orientation determined at birth? We believe it is not.
A person’s sexual orientation is not determined at birth, but it is simply shaped at an early age, possibly when the person has begun to reach puberty, or as early as they can communicate with peers.There are several arguments against our speculation of the matter, but here are a few of ours:


The word 'gay' has been used time and time again in the most negative form possible. Since society has welcomed this, homosexuality is now something that is frowned upon, and ridiculed. Most people who have had homosexual thoughts or feelings shun them and neglect them because they do not want to become the outcast in society's perfect aristocracy of people. Does this not make homosexuality a decision? Or make it able to control/change? Some say that homosexuality is not a choice, but so far no study has proven that to be true. 


Also, many say that children who have gay/lesbian relatives can carry the “gay gene”, but this statement is false. First off, what if there are no homosexuals in their ancestry? Second, there is no medical test for locating the gay gene. There is no scientific evidence or DNA test for sexual orientation. It is even difficult to see how the the gene could survive the gene pool over a period of time. Absolutely no research has been proven to support this claim. 


Another, is that homosexual emotions/actions can be mimicked or influential on a vulnerable mind. Even if a person is born straight, experimentation or curiosity can no doubt lead to being gay/lesbian.


Homosexuality, bisexuality, asexuality, is a choice. So bring it on.


- Ruby Rew & Pedro Vargas