Author: Indya Woodfolk

I think that Archer’s ideas in Attacking the Fourth Estate were very interesting. His usage of politicians’ involvement and disdain towards media was interesting to see along with the data from Donald Trump’s tweets. I do not believe that press is the enemy of the public, however, it does play a role in antagonizing a certain politician through their word usage and biases.

Although bias is inevitable, anything written by a human will have some sort of bias (whether intentional or not), it is more important that the audience is able to understand when it is happening, and pull apart biases from facts. As Archer stated, this bias will be amplified especially if the view is of an opposite party than the news is presenting. Looking at and understanding varieties of news sources can decrease someone from only looking at a source that is framed toward one party.

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The Vietnam War, in its entirety, was indescribably terrible. It is just unthinkable to me that the US can have blatant and constant disrespect for minorities and people who are poor, all in all the “others” in the eyes of the government. Anyone who is not them. And this is amplified along with the amount of money that it will cost or give them. I feel like, throughout my school career, I rarely heard much about the Vietnam War, especially in respect with the governments hand in things. Other than learning about PTSD and things that have happened to US soldiers as a result of it. But never about the protest nor about all the things that happened there. Everything I did learn came from outside sources.

My grandfather actually served in Vietnam, and if he were alive today I wish I could understand more about his experience with that. How he got involved and what he experienced there. I also wonder, with all the things in the past that the government has done, what are they still doing today that is not being spoken about. Most of the things, that I am sure do exist, probably can’t be seen or understand by us because we are all privileged in a sense since we all are in at a university. How do we change that?

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On Tuesday November 12 I listened to Michele Norris’ talk about The Race Card Project. The Race Card Project is something that she founded, that people define race or discuss their ideas about race in only six words.

It is so interesting how hesitant people are to talk about race. Sometimes we are scared of saying something that no one else may relate to, or it may hurt someones’ feelings. However, it is important to realize that everyones’ ideas are valid and speak numbers about our culture. It is even more interesting to see how people who identify differently than me see/understand race. When we tried this project one girl wrote “it really isn’t a big deal.” Which confused me, because growing up in the south, it was really all I thought about it. But to others its’ effects are invisible. Beginning and opening up this conversation about race is so important because it actively affects our lives, even if it is not noticeable or visible to some. People constantly make decisions based on race, so we all need to continue to educate ourselves on its’ true effects on everyone.

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In Omelas, there is something wrong underneath, that the entire town knows about but no one addresses. They cannot fix the problem as it would ruin the city as they know it but instead try their hardest to live on while they know about it. When it becomes too much some may leave in the middle of the night. 

In the Lottery, there is a tradition that they will not go away from, as they believe that breaking away from it would be similar to returning to being barbaric. They see that the people in surrounding cities are breaking away from this system, but refuse to do that themselves.

Both of these short stories had twisted and chilling endings. Omelas began overly joyful, describing how happy the people were and how joyous the people of Omelas were there. The Lottery began describing the daily duties of the people, and the story began as normal but as it went on, there was always a singular word or phrase that made the background of the city more mysterious. I would how different or how much happiness they would actually sacrifice by saving the happiness of that one child. Or how much the city in the Lottery would change if they didn’t have the lottery system. It seems like neither of the places are truly dependent on it but they continue to hold on to it as if it did.

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It is so interesting how Zinn is able to retrieve all of this data. Much of which can not be found nor taught in American history. It may be lesser known that Abraham Lincoln didn’t free the slaves out of the kindness of his heart, but the statistics that Zinn gives, are most likely completely unknown and will never be taught about. This is ridiculous, especially with the amount of American “history” that is pushed down our throats during grade school. It is so interesting that these same tactics, excuses, and justifications are still used today today put down minorities and people in poverty.

History is really whatever story “they” are telling and only what they want us to know. Zinn explains the slave community as “a generalized extended kinship system” and it’s so amazing that the black community still has that today in some sense. Without that being blatantly explained to us, our history lives through our culture. 

If the condition slaves were put under, and rebellions because of it, were not enough to get people (Northerners) who weren’t directly affected involved, what would? Does the globalization of the world, and increased technology, allow us to have more empathy, feel more connected, and thus make us better equipped to feel for these situations. What about those situations with child labor in cocoa or the production of clothes? What matters more here quality or quantity, what qualifications make a rebellion move people, and makes it able to overcome oppression and military/police brutality during?

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Rebellions have been used over time to overthrow governments who weren’t sufficiently providing for the people. This has especially been seen throughout history in the United States. This struggle has almost always been linked with the oppression of the poor by the wealthy. The fight between the two was also commonly used to get the people against another, larger opposer. In one of the examples given, the author describes the French or England

I am curious, then, what makes a country actually rally up against another opponent when there is enough strife within. Is it because it is only one party who has genuine influence over the issue? Or does the sense of nationalism overcome any anger towards the outside party? I would assume that the nationalistic feel would only carry them so far, as I feel that it would decrease overtime and no longer be an effective way to get the people together.

 

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On Wednesday 23 October I went to hear ambassador Thomas Pickering speaking about US Iran Relations.

He first focuses on the history of the relationship. First, Iran was focused on economic development, specifically with their nuclear program. They even promoted education of nuclear physics and other nuclear technologies. Their focus was on plutonium production and uranium enrichment. Many other nations, through the UN, began to worry about this. In return, Iran went into a two year standstill to show that everyone could trust them. The US was not involved but made it clear that they did not want Iran to go back to doing this. The Obama administration believed in containment without production and wanted nuclear inspection program. Then, in January of 2015 an agreement was made for limited enrichment and remodification of machinery. There was also an agreement to not make nuclear weapons nor burning of fuel in these power reactors.

When the Trump administration took office the US was pulled out of the agreement, which means we were no longer monitoring Iran. Iran has increased both the quantity and quality of enrichment. They have also increased violent events but there has been no major military retaliation. There are many theories of where we go from here, the majority of which including negotiations rather than violence, to which Pickering adds that it is much easier to pay diplomats than to afford war. Pickering ended on a note of solving problems through one on one contact and continuing these conversations between the two places. Even though they do things we don’t like but vice versa, you can’t negotiate peace with your allies.

 

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On Tuesday 22 October I went to hear Mary Kuhn, Assistant Professor of English at UVA, give a talk called “Plant Feeling in the Anthropocene.” Although this is science, she focuses on language and human treatment of other beings, and how that affects both them and us. Her speech focused on the move in science towards treatment of plants as highly skilled and intelligent as they are. So many books, articles, and podcasts have been published to try to break down the borders between human intelligence and the complex systems that plants carry out.

These ideas of plant sentience began to take off in the 19th century. It is interesting that, as she points out, we save terms such as “learning, memory, decision making” for creatures with actual brains. And even people in this industry stray away from using these terms, however, their resistance is because they believe it reduces their complex systems to our level. Moreover, our brains perform less complex systems than they. We use terms such as a vegetable to describe someone who is mentally dead. Many scientists believe that their treatment as subjects rather than objects plays a big role in our want to protect them. Knowing that trees experience pain and pleasure, and even that tree parents live along their children connects them more with humans and even animals. I think this is can moreover go in to understanding words and ways of thought that we use in order to justify discrimination against one another based on differences, by trying to make “the others” as different from “us” than possible. 

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Miller’s piece discussed relationships and how dominance and subordination exists in some form of them. She says this stems from there being some sort of difference between the two, which could include age, gender, or even race. She describes temporary inequality as a relationship that is made to be ended, one that has a purpose to better the subordinate. A permanent inequality is one where groups of are put down because of who they are.

Miller questions how much diversity do we actually like before there is some sort of trouble in the relationship. I think that this can be seen as groups expand. People tend to gravity to what they know, and then with that create a hierarchy within that. Thus, with bigger groups there would be more likely for this division to occur.

When considering racial inequality I think her statements are very interesting, especially as dominance is no longer meaning majority. I don’t think it is as true (although it has some truth) that the dominants are guiding society. Today, especially in America, I think there is so much diversity in ideas and cultures, however, the dominants still majorly affect social beliefs. In all, I think racially we are shifting away from many of her ideas of dominance, although the rooted belief systems still affect us today.

 

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Charismatic people are can be very powerful as they have great influences on the people that they attract. For example, Hitler is constantly described as a charismatic leader and the result of that was a massive genocide. On the other hand, there are many other charismatic leaders who have promoted peace such as Gandhi and played a positive role on the people who followed them. It is obvious that the great influence that charismatic leaders possess can be used to persuade massive amounts of people to act a certain way, whether good or bad.

In my experience, you can tell how charismatic someone is upon meeting them, there is something in the way the speak, act, and carry themselves. However, I am interested in the question of if it is learned or innate, and if it even matters. If someone dedicates themselves to practicing the six traits of becoming charismatic, how much would it differ from someone who seems to be naturally charismatic? How many “naturally charismatic” people are genuinely that way, or do they too work on it from day to day? I would think that even if someone is not naturally charismatic, working towards those six characteristics can be a great help and can play a huge role in becoming an effective leader.

 

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Hero: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Leader: Barack Obama

Role Model: Ellen DeGeneres

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