The Beyonce video was really cool, I’ve never seen it before. I really liked how it seemed to be set in a time period where white people had a lot of power, but Beyonce flipped the script and had all black people dressed as white people were dressed in that time. It was really cool to see how the video was worked to have black people take back the power in that setting. Ford wrote that Beyonce’s lyrics were a way for her to claim her power, that she has earned her spot among the greats (196). Another really interesting part to me was that Beyonce had a different hair style in every scene which I think is a huge part of black women culture and really cool to see in the video. She didn’t have to do it but she did, and I just thought it was cool to see.

Childish Gambino’s This is America video was one I watched a lot when it first came out. It is one that is hard to look away from. The most intriguing but also kinda scary part was all the kids in school uniforms. It reminds me a lot of all the school shootings across the US and also makes me think of how desensitized society is to all of these school shootings. As Osman says, the school children’s “inattentiveness to the horrors behind them is both appalling and familiar” (40). It is a really scary thought that we just hear about these shootings and just add them to the list, without any real action being taken. This year alone, the US has had 150 mass shootings (Wikipedia) and that number is super high for less than 4 months into the year but it literally felt like just a number when I wrote it down. That’s a really scary thought that personally I am so desensitized to the violence in the US.

Everything that has a story has a lesson (Bezio). I think this is a super important point to remember when reading anything, whether it be news or an actual story. Recognizing that everything has a lesson to learn so that the reader dives in and really reads and understands the words and context is essential for any reader. Whether it is a good lesson or a bad one, finding it and utilizing it in the real world can be really useful when examining and analyzing literature.

Also, that whole story replay confused me. I thought it was a possessive husband like locking up his wife in the castle because she was “sick” and needed rest. But by the end, I am thinking this woman who wrote this is the perspective of the woman in the walls and she is a crazy psycho or she is dead and this dude can’t let go of her. The whole wallpaper thing is creepy. The fact that the author is writing about a woman stuck in the wallpaper and how she believes that the woman gets out during the day is weird. But I looked up the story and “yellow wallpaper symbolizes societal oppression of women in American society” (Google), so the story is basically about the oppression of women and how women can be belittled into almost children just following orders by dominating family members, especially husbands.

What we as a society promote in popular culture and stories have profound impacts on what our world looks like. As said in the podcast, popular culture makes arguments about what should or should not be in culture that surrounds us and the stories we tell can change/shape our world. To think that popular culture does not play a large role in society and leadership is to “profoundly misapprehend” its value in the world (Bezio). Therefore, as a society, we have a job to use works of culture for the better, whether it is to create a more representative popular culture or use popular culture to mold minds to be more inclusive or more inspired.

Even more, our society’s leaders must be aware of what is being promoted in popular culture and ask the necessary questions to encourage or fix what is being put out there. As said in Harvey, “to lead is to ask.” Leaders must be questioning what popular culture is identifying as society’s identity or purpose. Any popular culture or stories that do not accurately represent society or misconstrue what society is meant to do should be fixed immediately or gotten rid of.  Representation and culture matter; therefore, leaders need to be asking or answering the right questions about popular culture, as it plays a profound role in who we are and what we strive to be. We must make sure the right messages are being put out there in order to make the world a better place for everyone.

Reading this article felt like deja vu. Another story of how white people basically just suck and their attempts at keeping black people’s voices and political opinions quiet. But this story is different to all the others. Hayter’s point that Richmond is significant because African Americans in the city organized a black electorate prior to the VRA stood out. It was really cool to read that, even with all the odds against them, African Americans in Richmond found a way to organize and a system to elect their preferred candidates. Richmond’s African Americans had help though, with Burger Court and John Mitchell’s Department of Justice allying with them which was really cool to hear.

I think it can apply to what is happening on campus. I think the BSC is similar to Richmond’s initial group that started before the VRA in that they are having the way for so much change to happen on this campus. It is really inspiring to see how it once worked out, with the VRA, so it is possible for real change to happen here again. So hopefully it goes as they say, history repeats itself.

My election was 2008, Obama vs McCain. My favorite ad was from Obama’s side called Yes We Can by Bezio on the google doc. It was an ad basically putting one of Obama’s speeches into song, featuring singers, such as John Legend and WILL.I.AM, and other famous people, such Kareem Abdul-Jabar, with Obama speaking over their voices singing. There was also a person signing ALS which was really cool to see.

I really liked this ad because it was easy to watch and didn’t seem to come off with too much of a political agenda. I also really liked the positive message of equality and how we can be better in this nation with equity, diversity, and inclusion. He mentions how enslaved persons fought for freedom, and how “nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change”. He also states that America is not as divided as politics like to say, which is a really encouraging point as the media and news focus heavily on republican vs democrat vs whoever else, in my opinion. I think just the overall “Yes we can” message is very powerful and super inspiring for America to hear over and over again throughout the ad.

To start off, I was very bad at this game. I think I got too cocky in the beginning before all the bad things start happening, but the first time, Fatou and Kodjo died pretty quickly. I eventually got the hang of meeting the sustenance and water requirements, knowing which crops to focus on, and then, further on, helping the village in addition to helping the family.

And the fact that “many of Africa’s challenges (such as HIV/AIDS) are not present in the simulation. Instead, the MV Sim purposefully incorporates only a select set of issues to make it a manageable educational tool that models challenges cutting across the disciplines of agronomy, public health, environmental science, and economics” (starting page of game) makes me realize how impossible it is to even fathom how different my wold is to Africa’s world. The MV Sim really does make me appreciate the complexity of meeting the MDG’s that are mentioned on the starting page of the game and how they are implemented in the game because it was really hard to meet them. Kind of a tangent but, I am reading a book called “Cold Tangerines” and the author visited Africa. She went on about how you have to be in the right mental state to visit the continent and how things you see there will be forever etched into your brain. I kinda shrugged it off as her being dramatic, but after this simulation, I am getting a bigger picture of just how intense, and kind of scary, Africa is.

One thing that really stood out to me was that both Fatou and Kodjo were 16. I know this may be typical of Africa to get married young, but as an outsider, and someone who is older than that and still had zero clue to how do the game/keep them alive, their age shocked me. And not because I necessarily care about how young people get married at, but because how can they survive and do business and work 12 hour days at 16? I don’t know, I just found their young age to be something that really caught my attention.

This ad is for Budweiser beer played during one of the previous Super Bowls. It’s my favorite ad because I love puppies and it has a really sweet message of forming family with others who are different than you. And although Budweiser or beer is not even mentioned, any viewer during the Super bowl would know that this is the Budweiser commercial. I think this is because the Budweiser organization is known for their commercials that inspire community among the beer-drinking commercials.

This ad targets beer-drinkers but also farmers and animal lovers, creating a large pool of people that would be invested in watching this ad and then going out to purchase Budweiser. By showing this bond between a horse and a puppy, and the heartbroken farmer at the puppy’s disappearance, the audience assumes that this beer fosters relationships between friends and family of this magnitude of love. If you drink Budweiser, then your friends will come save you and be so happy to see you when you return from anywhere else.

This is probably one of my favorite graphs. I just think how I found it is funny. CNN referenced it in a post they made about the news faking the numbers of COVID-19 cases and accused the numbers of being misleading – aka they think that corona is not as present/active in the US as this graph says it is. The graph was created by the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine, specifically in their Coronavirus resource center, and is updated daily for the number of cases and where they are. The line across the graph represents the positivity ratio versus the number os people tested, the orange represents new cases and the purple represents deaths from COVID-19. After studying the graph and checking the sources and numbers, this graph is a reliable one. It portrays accurate information and comes from a very reliable and honest source.

I disagree with Flanigan’s argument for not requiring prescription notes. I believe that, especially in this country, without a doctor’s note, no one should be able to access prescription strength drugs or medications. Unfortunately, yes, there will be situations like Danny where the obvious solution is to allow him to get insulin without a note, but there will also be situations with hypochondriacs or drug addicts receiving prescriptions too easily. I do not feel that she addressed addiction well enough in her proposal for not requiring prescription notes. I firmly believe that all addicts can get over their addictions, but a voluntary program to get clean is not a viable option.

Her argument did not completely fall through for me – I liked the part with the ‘behind the counter’ drugs and having psychotherapeutic/analgesic medications requiring a pharmacist or doctor to sign off. I believe that if she was to have her way and some drugs did not require a doctor’s note any longer, that was she proposed was a good option to maintain somewhat of a true pharmacy feel.

A lot of buildings on this campus have controversial names. I mean, the campus was built over the graves of enslaved persons and a plantation site. A lot of donors and people of power who have been here and who are still here in spirit on the names of buildings were not the greatest of people. And, in my opinion, the only way that we can remember this history of ours is to face it everyday and learn from it. That being said, I agree with what Kendall and Tess said in class, that yes, leaving the names does still allow their presence to be felt and makes me and others uncomfortable, but taking their names off the buildings can allow people to forget what happened. And no one should forget how this campus came to be how it is today.

I think a solution to this issue would to be what was done with Mitchell-Freeman Hall, attaching another name, such as one of the slaves owned by the person, to the current one to allow people to remember the history and also attach a more positive vibe to it.