activism

Engl 165-04 Fall '22, Engl 165-16 Fall '22

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l I’ve also not put too much thought on about what I would be like if I didn’t have freedom. I do have to say I don’t ever think my freedom would be stripped because of the color of my skin, mostly because I am white. On the other hand, I do think my attraction to men would give people a reason to strip me of certain rights. I would also have to agree that I don’t care much for activism because I some incenses I don’t think it would really change anyone perspective on how the view things like black rights, LGBTQ+ rights, or types of religious liberties.



People in general don’t really care for activism because mostly activism just reinforces negative public perception to the point where people just see activists as fanatics, wild-eyed zealots who see the world in black and white. The reasons that many activists are seen this way is that the corporate media works relentlessly to portray activism in a bad light. Secondly, many activists are wild-eyed zealots who see the world in black and white terms. One of the more counterproductive yet enduring activist tendencies is to focus way more time and energy challenging cops than challenging the dominant culture those cops are serving and protecting. So, if you really want to goad cops into arresting you and/or scream “fuck the police,” please recognize that such gestures will do absolutely nothing to bring about serious, sustainable social change or to help lure more folks into activism.

 
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Social Gospel: The Filter of Today’s Society

Engl 165-04 Fall '22

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The idea of Social Gospel, in my opinion, is the application of Christian principles to reform society. This concept is displayed through Book One of March through John Lewis. Lewis grew up preaching as a minister, and wished to display his religious principles to better society through taking action, rather than learning about the history, which inevitably served as a huge stepping stone into the role he played: a civil rights activist.

Although I’m not particularly religious, the concept of Social Gospel applies to my everyday life through the implementation of a set of morals. From random acts of kindness to important decisions, every action I take is ran through my set of morals, which acts as a filter. The “filter” helps shape the outcome, such as how it will affect the receiving end of my decision, or who will walk away happier. This is important to me, as spreading happiness serves as a moral itself. I try to apply these morals to everything in my life, simply to better myself and everyone around me. Each decision I make reforms society in the smallest way possible, even if it’s as simple as making a single person happy.

In today’s society, I feel that Social Gospel is displayed through politics. Although this is a stretch, the political parties each serves as their own fundamental principles to reform their image of a perfect society. For example, the Republican party can serve as someone’s personal Social Gospel through their beliefs on abortion. On the other side, the Democratic party can serve as someone else’s personal Social Gospel through their support of LGBTQ+ rights.

The concept of Social Gospel can be applied to anything, as the definition is what you make it. Each person has their own variation of it, and how they apply it to their lives is completely up to them.

 
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the important movement of America

Engl 165-04 Fall '22

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        To me social gospel is a movement that is derived from Christion ethics, which are then applied to social problems. There were many problems that this was applied to. Poverty, nutrition and health, education, economic inequality, alcoholism, racial tensions, slums, unclean environments, child labor, lack of unionization, poor schools, crime, and warfare would be such problems. “However social needs were emphasized, the doctrines of sin, salvation heaven and hell, and the future kingdom of God were downplayed.” Social gospel had inspired many people to create social institutions where people in trouble could go to escape their hardships. Some of the more famous institutions were the settlement house founded by Jane Adams which served the poor in urban areas by “living among them and serving them directly.” The YMCA was created to help young homeless men which surprisingly is still around today.   

 

        The social gospel led John Lewis towards a path of non-violence. The philosophy of John Lewis started to spread as the civil rights movements grew. It says in the book that johns love for the gospel was born at a very young age, his uncle even gave him his own bible when he was four. Even though he was unable to read it himself when his mother read to him, he was strongly impacted by the words. He said himself that “I’ll never forget my mother reading aloud to me the first words in that book ‘in the beginning God, created the heaven and the earth’”. Knowing early on that he wanted to be a preacher he would often preach to the chickens he was responsible for. He knew not that as he was preaching to these chickens, he was indirectly molding his own future. The social gospel helped society grow and reform past its barbaric beliefs. Many people dealing with problems were helped by this movement.

 
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The Battle of Reading

Engl 165-04 Fall '22, March Blog Prompt

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     I’ve always been deterred from any form of reading. I have been like that since I was in the third grade. Why the third grade you might ask? That’s when they start testing your reading comprehension. Whenever I try to read I tend to notice it’s only my eyes that are looking across the page but I’m not retaining any information my eyes see. My brain will think about anything but. This became a problem when reading assignments became a normal thing as I went up in grades in school. 

     Textbooks and old English literature aren’t my first choices for entertainment. Therefore my brain would easily get distracted when assigned reading assignments for school. I never really picked up reading as a hobby so there was never really any practice for reading on my own. Comic books were never something I was drawn to either, mainly because the ones I saw were about Marvel Superheroes and such… don’t hate me, I know it’s an unpopular opinion but to each their own.

     Getting assigned a 125 page reading assignment from a comic book called March, put a little worry into my head because I know there would be 125 pages worth of time where a wandering thought could lead me to a plethora of distractions. I started off the book on a good note, I was in a quiet room, I was optimistic. Five pages in and my first distraction hits. I find myself texting back to my boyfriend. So I start the book over, this time locked in, allowing myself to really read the words on the page. After that I didn’t need to be strict on myself because once Congressman Lewis started talking about the chickens he cared for when he was a child, my attention was his. I was worried the Comic book format would be too much for my brain to digest because of how busy the page looks but as the story unfolded and the more and more pages I read I found it easier to understand the text. The pictures painted a good image of emotion and reactions each character had, making me more sympathetic to each individual in understadnig what they were thinking and feeling while facing such discriminating behavior they faced from society. The story itself was informative and captivating for me as the reader. Because of March I may have to rethink my opinion of Comic books, maybe evening reading overall.

 

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March Reflection and Farmville Va

March Blog Prompt

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When reading March, many past events are brought up throughout the reading. I enjoyed reading them in the comic format because it was more interesting than just words on the page. The pictures alongside the words helped me better visualize the events that happened. I tend to lose track while reading pages of books because they are for the most part not very entertaining. Reading about John Lewis showed me more about the cruelty of the events that took place in the past. I have grown up in Farmville my whole life, Which is a town that is very prevalent in these issues. The town of Farmville shut down all the schools in 1959 to avoid desegregation and opened private schools only for white students. I actually attended middle school in this same building. It was opened in 1960 as Prince Edward Academy only for white students. The idea was to open a school where there was a costly tuition only the white students could afford. There weren’t any other schools in the area open back then so a lot of my family members had to go there to get an education. It was eventually closed and bought by another person and opened as a desegregated private school called Fuqua. Though the racist meaning behind opening Prince Edward Academy is gone the building remains in use today.

These ugly events shaped the America we live in today, so learning about them is very important. I had heard about Martin Luther King and Emmett Till, but I did not know who John Lewis was prior to the reading. We are not taught about all of history, only bits and pieces that make up the whole story. This leads to many very important parts being left out and unheard. As all history repeats itself many of the same problems arise for different generations. We currently are living through times similar to those of Martin Luther King, Emmett till, and John Lewis. To me understanding the past is very important for us to deal with our current problems. Sadly, I believe there is no easy solution for the issues our country faces. I do feel like my generation has less racist views towards each other than those generations before us, so maybe that is a step in the right direction. It is not hard to all live amongst each other with no issues so hopefully, we as Americans can come to a solution to stop racism.

 

 
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How much have things truly changed?

Engl 165-16 Fall '22, March Blog Prompt

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While it is unfortunate to read about such heinous racism during the mid 1900s,  these stories seem still all too realistic in todays day and age.  Reading about how African-Americans had to be careful about driving to and from places is still a serious worry for some today.  While there are indeed places and areas of our country where even the idea of racism seems nonexistent, there are others where you might say the opposite.

It’s remarkable to think about how big of a difference there was within our country when it came to integration back in the day.  How in the north both Black and White people would be able to live in more or less “Harmony.”  Yet in the south, racism was an all day, everyday event.  It’s upsetting to think that in todays world, while we have seemingly evolved and matured into a country that might look as if we have moved past racism on pen and paper, the everyday daily life is still fully of racism.

The public school system that I attended in middle and high school is a prime example of modern day racism.  Almost half of the counties schools had confederate based mascots.  One of the high schools were LITERALLY the confederates!  You would walk into their schools football games on Friday nights and see multiple confederate flags being worn, waived, etc. amongst the student section.  Just like in the book when they were stressing about making the drive from the south to north because of the areas that black people would have to pass through, I would have to assume that these areas would make some having at least some of the same type of worries.  I would sit in class and hear groups of white kids, ages 15, 16, 17, some 18 calling the few African-american kids in the class the ‘N” simple because they thought it was funny and that they were somehow above and better than them.

While racism clearly was much more common during the mid 1900’s, it still is making its presence now in todays world.

 

 

 
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Time to Write!!!!

Engl 165-16 Fall '22

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Partial Cover of Book One of the Graphic Novel March

Please reflect on the first reading in Book One of March, pgs 1-61. You can, but aren’t required, to talk about

  1. What your experience was reading in the comics format. Have you ever read comics before, was this hard for you, did you have issues while reading, etc.
  2. How much of this did you already have knowledge of, did you learn in school, are you a history buff, etc.
  3. For you personally, how relevant is this right now given everything that is going on in our world.
  4. For our country, how relevant is this right now given everything in the news

You are not limited to these in your reflection, these are just some ideas. BE SURE to use techniques in They Say, I Say. I will be LOOKING for these.