Monday, October 31, 2016

ENGL 344- Blog #5: Video and Roundtable Thoughts

Video-
This video was hard for me to watch because the people just seemed so ignorant to anyone else in the world that aren’t white! I wish they could consider if other races were to be so against them (whites) and if they were to be kicked out of their country. A very shocking fact to me was when they said they wanted Jews to be kicked out of the country. This immediately made me think of the Holocaust and I am disgusted with the fact that people can just forget about this, not consider these issues, and give in to the same horrible mindset that Hitler had.
The community of East Tennessee feels torn a part because their businesses have had trouble staying open and they blame this on global trade companies. This pushes them towards being Trump supporters. There are many rally and committee meetings for these white nationalists in hopes of kicking people out of “their” country. They are calling this a European Style Nationalist Movement. Matthew Heimback refuses the term racism as they believe this to be used to determine “white people who want to advocate for their best interest.”
I would agree with Carol Anderson, a professor, when she exclaims that racism is framing this discussion. America is becoming vastly more cultural and this mindset to rid of so many races is a huge problem. It is scary to think that Trump’s campaign has opened the door for what many hope to have a wider following. It’s easy to think that if Trump isn’t elected all of these problems will go away, but they probably won’t. This presidential election has more than likely negatively affected any progress America has made to be more accepting and equal for all.

Graduate Round table Discussion-

I thought many of the ideas discussed were relatable and awakening. From chapter 5, they pulled out the quote: “Inexperience is a quality of the human condition. We are born one time only, we can never start a new life equipped with the experience we’ve gained from a previous one … even when we enter old age, we don’t know what it is we’re heading for: the old are innocent children of their old age. In that sense, man’s world is the planet of inexperience” (ibid). It is like we are too hard on ourselves as humans, that we should constantly have all of the answers and know all of the next steps. Yet, life is just much more complex than that and we find ourselves lost or unknowing of the road ahead. We build upon the experience we do have every single day. In Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi seems to fully understand this when he is telling his son how grateful he is to be black and not have to ever blend in or try to be white. He doesn’t just complain about the problems he faces, he knows this is the life he was given and that he must accept and appreciate it for exactly the way it is.

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