The House I Live In

The House I Live In, directed by Eugene Jarecki, was a very eye opening documentary. It opened my eyes to America's war on drugs, and what appears to be a war on racial backgrounds as well. As Jarecki points out, drug crimes seem to follow a trend of criminalizing certain races based on the drugs that have a popularity within their cultures. For example, opium was a drug that was used primarily by middle aged housewives and successful whites in the 1800's. It wasn't until Chinese immigrants, who were hard working and willing to work for very little pay started using the drug in California that the drug became illegal. It would stand to reason that white people were feeling threatened economically by these immigrants, and therefore they needed to find a reason to put them in prison to protect themselves.

My view, at least in generations moving forward, is that we need to be focusing on educating people about the harmful effects of drugs. Not just the effects of using, but also the dangers of selling drugs. I think Jarecki made some very interesting points, but to further his ideas, I would have liked him to elaborate more on education and prevention rather than just blame the racial issue.

Invention of Wings

I can’t really say I particularly identify with any of the characters in the novel “The Invention of Wings” by Sue Monk Kidd. This book contains a large spectrum of characters from the cold hearted Mrs. Grimke to the kind hearted and brave Sarah Grimke. If I had to choose a character I wish I could identify with, it would have to be Sarah Grimke. As a young girl, she knew in her heart that the way things were in her society were not right. At the age of eleven, for her birthday, she was bestowed a gift of her very own slave girl, Hetty (Handful). Sarah immediately knew that it was wrong and she opposed owning another human being, so in a valiant attempt to free Hetty, she wrote a note to her father proclaiming she has set Hetty free from slavery. Of course the note only backfired on her and she found it torn in half in front of the door to her bedroom when she woke up the next morning. To have such strong morals at such a young age, despite societal norms, is a very honorable quality. Sarah exhibits a great amount of courage throughout the entire novel, and her early attempt to free Handful was only the beginning of the courageous woman she would grow to be. One day I hope I will have as much courage and determination as Sarah.

My First Paper

The process of writing my first college level paper was a very intimidating task. Four pages seemed like an insurmountable task to me. I have never been a strong writer, and I have not written anything more than short business type emails in almost 15 years! I tend to have many thoughts scrambled in my head, but I have never been skilled at organizing them into coherent ideas for other people to understand.

I can't say I really had an established "process" while writing this paper. I just started typing and let the thoughts flow. I did make a few lists with bullet points that I wanted to include in my argument, but I am not sure that was helpful to me. Once I had all of my thoughts down, I proceeded to attempt to organize them in a more cohesive way.

I would consider the topic of the paper (differences in education) as something I have never contemplated before the assignment, but once I read the articles I realized I had some pretty strong opinions on the subject.  I chose to use Jean Anyon’s paper, as well as Mike Rowe and Daniel Denvir, for my comparisons. Those papers had several interesting aspects in my opinion. I was able to relate my own educational experiences to the topic, so it made it a little easier for me to come up with an idea for a thesis, and support my ideas.

 

Overall, I would say writing this paper was quite nerve-wracking for me, but I managed to get through it and I feel much better now that I have my first paper completed. Hopefully the next time I sit down to write, I will have a little more confidence in myself.