Untouchable- Essay #2 (Rough Draft)

Well, it's not organized yet, but I'm getting there.

Tentative Thesis:

In Untouchable, Anand describes how Bakha adopts a false consciousness, trying to live up to the life of the Englishmen instead of identifying with his own Hindu culture. He adopts a false consciousness by wanting to learn how to read and write as the English do (since his low place in the caste system didn't allow him to do so), by trying to play hockey (an english sport) and by being exposed to the English culture and religion as he lives with Colonel Hutchinson (pg 130, quote sandwich could be made on this point) . The ideology of the caste system reflects upon race and class (key term?) in India.

Supporting claims (paragraphs that should follow the thesis):

How each of the following:

1. learning how to write
2. playing hockey
3. being exposed to a different religion (pg 130)

magnify and affect false consciousness in Bahka. Expand and clarify and I can use key terms from racial formation here

Other thoughts:

In various points of the novel, we also see how Bakha's false consciousness evolves and changes throughout. We see how significant it is to Bakha to want to escape the unfairness of his own culture by trying to adopt the English culture, and we see how trying to adopt a new culture and neglect affects his own identity.

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Intersectionality can be used to analyze how the ideology of the caste system works. We see that in the novel, Bakha is a sweeper and is looked upon as a filthy person but when he accidentally bumps into someone above him in the caste system, he is bemoaned and insulted for not announcing that he was passing by. We also see that Bakha steps into a temple/shrine and when he is seen, he is insulted over and over for desecrating the temple, but when he realizes that the priest of the temple molested his sister, we see that Bakha cannot do anything about it, simply because the priest is higher than him in the caste system. Bakha experiences intense discrimination, and his own people, people who live in the same country and who are Hindu like he is, still discriminate him, simply for being different than him.

In Retrospect...

This cluster has impressed me from beginning to end. Sometimes it is hard to make connections with each class in the cluster, but in the end it all ties into each other. We see how slavery was back in the day and we also see how sometimes the effects of slavery ring true in today's world. Topics that we talk about in each class seem to always intertwine with each other. Talking about race and culture in each of the three classes make me critically think about what race and culture really mean to me. Not a day goes by where I ride the train and try to see people and their cultures and not identify them solely by their race. I see how linguistics and accents are a part of different cultures in NY and I see how different we all are and instead of dismissing the differences  I learn to acknowledge them. Instead of judging people by their race, I acknowledge them as equals. Now I see how different races and cultures influence me and the world around me.  Suddenly, I no longer feel the need to use the term "n**ga" as a term of endearment since I am now aware of the implications of the term. Now, I am able to be socially and culturally aware of the people around me. We all live on the same floating rock we call Earth, and learning about wat I have learned in these classes lets me see that maybe we aren't black or latino or hispanic or white or dark skinned. Maybe we are all those things.

Maybe we are all just human after all.

Twitter goes educational, political, and more

Overall, I was impressed by the new twitter handles we were exposed to. They provide information about society and things that are going on, ranging from politics to the prison system as well. Although some provide more information than others (BAMN provides a lot, and I mean a lot of thank you’s in their recent tweets), but mostly they provide thought-provoking dialogue and articles that make us think differently of our own lives. I am a favorite of @lobojost's blog because it hits so close to home (since I live in the Bronx myself) and he talks about things that happen that I would have never even thought about until I would be older. He talks about housing, education, economic justice and anti-systemic-racism organizing, and I have never really thought about those things, so his sources provide me with a background of what really goes on in the Bronx. I honestly don't think that I would have found these twitter handles by myself, but being exposed to them helps me learn more about what I don't really know. I am not convinced that twitter is a legitimate way to have interesting conversations, mainly because of the limited characters one can type to each other. Interesting conversations would most likely be more than 140 characters, and people would probably prefer to have longer and extended conversations, as they would be able to on a blog or on a chat, but twitter makes it easy to share information, and the speed in which one can do so provides a lot of sources for one to look through. These twitter handles provide a great array of information that I would have never been exposed to and which provide me a new perspective in my life.

Racial Profiling in regards to Muslims

The chart "Anti Islamic Hate Incidents, 1995-2008" demonstrates how hate crimes against people of Islamic origin contrasts between those specific time periods. It also shows the rise of hate crimes throughout the 2000's. This data is important because it shows how the rise of the incidents affected the Muslim people throughout the years and how racial profiling affected them too. This chart ties to the events of 9/11 and how racial profling and hate crimes increased due to the fact that the perpetrators of the horrendous act were muslim themselves. This act of terror shed a very judgmental and negative light on Muslims around the world, even though it was an isolated act in which only a few Muslims were involved. In contrast, Muslims are very peaceful people and do not want to cause any harm to Americans. But as the the group Al-Qaeda carried out the act, Muslims around the world had to pay and suffer through humiliation caused by Al-Qaeda and withstood racial incidents since then. Although racial tension between Americans and Muslims have lessened since the incident, one cannot help but wonder when we will be truly be able to accept them.

Response to Denii's Blog

 The purpose of my response is to clarify and to analyze Denni's point of view on mixed races. Denii raises a valuable point that is debatable in today's society. In her blog Mixed Race, she states that the only way slavery (both mental and non mental) could end is through a balanced education of culture and through open mindedness. It is a valid claim because she herself has been exposed to multiple cultures. Denii states that "one of my teachers in middle school was black and Korean, one of my sister-in-laws in married to a Korean man and have a beautiful Korean-Dominican daughter, I also met plenty of people mixed with black and Hispanic blood or Asian and Hispanic blood or Asian and American blood" (Rincon). Denii knows how it feels to be exposed to multiple races and she sees how prejudice can end if we just come to accept all the different cultures around the world without stereotypes or without judgement. You can still be African-American, Korean, Korean, Puerto Rican and you can still be human because your culture is still valuable to the world, and the white culture is not the only culture that counts. All cultures are valuable, and we just need to be exposed to them in order to understand that. I agree with Denii because so many people in today's world are ignorant of other cultures and they sometimes even feel threatened by the presence of another culture. Some people get nervous around African-American males because they think they might get robbed or beat up, but they are not going to and they could be going to school and just going to their jobs to support their family. Not all people are the same and sometimes we even have similarities. Instead of listening to the prejudice instilled into our heads, we just have to give them a chance and see what they're about. Multiculturalism and the acceptance of different cultures is the way to achieve equality, and Denii hit the nail on the head by stating that in her claim. All in all, she makes a valid point and a point that we must all consider in our lifetimes if we want to see the end of slavery, whether it be mental or non-mental.

 I think you (Denii) can use this claim on your blog because you have experience and you know what it feels like to be exposed to different cultures. It would go well with the essay and you would be able to get concrete evidence through life experience.

Works Cited:

Rincon, Denni, Mixed Races, "http://deniiraceandcultureblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/mixed-races.html"

Blog Two

I found today's class interesting because we discussed many points about the reading Slave and Citizen.   I was intrigued by the upward mobility society had for African-American slaves back then and how it would contribute to the end of racism. Tannenbaum believed that racism would only end if the blacks would stop being black and if they were more like their white counterparts, but this is an interesting notion because race, a main factor in racism, would still exist. White would be the only race that would exist, but everyone being white is not the solution to racism. The elimination of race is the real solution. Race has no correlation to how people act or how they will be, so why is there so much emphasis based on it? We all live on the same planet, the pigmentation in our skin differs from region to region, so why does it matter what color we are? These are the questions Tannenbaum should be asking and answering. 

Blog One: If hate is the shoelace, humanity is the sneaker

During the discussions we had in class, nothing gripped me more than when we talked about how the Holocaust and the slave trade are a part of human nature. More specifically, we discussed how any human being can have the inherent drive to cause immense pain, through hate and suffering, to other people for the pleasure of improving their own lives. Humans have the drive to succeed and are narcissistic and they would do anything to make it to the top. This also implies that as long as there are humans, there will be a continuation of hate throughout our existence. Slavery is an example because it has persisted through hundreds of years and it will most likely make a return in the near future due to the large capital and the money it has provided in the past. The use of religion in slavery is relevant because they captured and make indigenous peoples slaves for profit and they justified their guilt for doing wrong by claiming their colonization as missionary work. They cover the hatred they use to make money with religion.

In the class, it was also argued that if someone were given the chance to kill another person for a large amount of money, that someone would not hesitate to murder them. Monetary gain proved to be more valuable than the human lives of others.

It is just so fascinating to see how the human ego plays a part in slavery and in all of the major fatal events of the world, including the Holocaust. Anyone can become hateful as long as you offer him or her money to carry out a malicious deed.