School is heavily underway here at the University of Sussex and I am finding the only times I am willing to write online are those times I'm trying to avoid writing an essay. This week's essay is for the History of Spain since 1808 and a presentation on Schizophrenia for Abnormal and Clinical Psychology.
But there have been some glorious events happening in the past two weeks that I would like to share.
Two weeks ago I auditioned for a play called "Marat/Sade" or as it is fully known: "Marat/Sade: The Persecution and Assassination of Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade" by Peter Weiss. Many people came to audition and for both the general audition and the call-backs I was in the first group. That determination paid off because I was cast as one of the nurses. I think I was put off at first because of the lack of lines (and not to mention how odd I would sound against all the British accents) but I will be in character on stage the entire 50 minutes. So I'll have plenty of time to garner a little attention, though I doubt I'll win any supporting actor Oscars.
Anyway, the reason why it was such an honor to get a role and not turn it down (as I was considering) is because this play will be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It is a month-long theatre fest in August (in Edinburgh, Scotland) featuring multiple actors all exhibiting their works and coming to watch yours. There are awards given to all the "bests" of the fest and there are celebrity sightings, since many of them at some point performed in the Fringe Festival.
But, the damper on the good news means having enough money to get back to this side of the world in August and provide for myself for three weeks. We'll perform the show for two weeks straight and we will all bunch up in someone's house (cast bonding) in either England before the show or in Edinburgh. We as a cast need to raise £5000 to secure our venue, travel, set and costumes, and all the other things we'll need for performance. I'll need to ask about all the specifics because I would love to know what exactly we're trying to fund, but we are each expected to raise a minimum of £100, using our own devices. As the only American, I am at a disadvantage since £100 roughly equals $200. I'll probably need to focus on trying to raise the funds on this side of the world where it's cheaper. Unfortunately, I only know students here!
I am not too worried about the money, definitely not because I necessarily have it, but I believe a big part of doing theatre is the understanding that sacrifices must be made (paying ones dues). A big part of doing anything you love basically requires putting other things aside. In this case, I will have to sacrifice my Spring Break travel plans. My goal of "dominating" the world will have to wait because this opportunity means a lot to me, and my acting resume. I'll still go to France and possibly Germany, but as far as all the other places: Amsterdam, Rome, Prague, they may have to continue saving a seat for me.
Maybe I can get a month-long job in July when I come back home. Long shot... and I don't know what I'll do about my living arrangements for LSU next semester. I'll need to see someone about a horse... I mean a house.
In other good news related areas, I submitted a proposal to direct a show at LSU for the next academic year. Before I left for England, I was asked to consider directing a show. I unfortunately had to turn it down, but I have found a play in England that I want to direct and I'm hoping the offer will still hold firm. The play is by a British author we studied in a theatre course last term named Sarah Kane. She is likened to Sylvia Plath as a playwright because both were visionaries that committed suicide before their works could be seen as prolific.
Sarah Kane wrote a play called "Cleansed" about seven people in a university which strangely becomes more like an asylum. There's strong language, nudity, masturbation, sex, rape, homosexuality, mutilation, and incest: a "fun for the whole family" type of play. I know it doesn't seem like something I'd suggest on the surface, but the story is about a quote Kane once heard comparing being in love to being in Dachau, considering the torture (sometimes) endured when you love someone endlessly.
I could keep writing, but I've already written a dissertation as my proposal to the heads of LSU Theatre, and I'll let you know if it is selected as one of about four student performed shows. It was chosen as one to be considered- a start, but it'll have to go through a few rounds before I'll know if I can direct it. It will be tough because of cast size, imagery (mutilation and giant sunflowers growing from the stage are somewhat difficult to do in a play) and the sexual content (which I will likely water down).
I have never been so excited about a show and the opportunity will be invaluable to my acting student experience. These are great times to be a theatre major and one can only hope that all will continue to go well.
20 February, 2005
I Cannot Resist a Debate
Okay, this is long, so grab a snack, but I needed to write this and post it everywhere I could.
Sorry otherwise for neglecting this journal... my bad! I, being human, forget to do stuff, usually when I am not getting paid to do them of course.
If you know me, I love to debate. So, I signed up on IMDB for a debate that started about the Dukes of Hazzard and moved on to racism.
The original guys post was:
Now as for this African Jedi guys comment......grow up you and probably none of any of your family you ever met were slaves so drop the racists issue. I'm by no means racists, I have plenty african american relation (who don't whine poor blacks). Let's this about this whole black racists for a minute..let's see
1. African Americans get College Scholarship Funds (United Negro College Fund)
2. African Americans get Black History Month
3. African Americans get BET (Black Entertainment Television) their own station
4. African Americans get more and more minority benefits every year.
Not to mention MTV might as well be BET 2.
I don't see a French Channel, or a all Latin Channel or a all polish channel.
We keep getting blamed from some Blacks for being such bad people,
1. They don't know us all
2. Stop the ancestor thing that happened so far back no living person could recall it.
3. I can't recall seeing much in the news about 2 whites shooting each other or robbing banks. You are killing your own origin, don't blame us.
Just live your life noramlly, let all of us just get along and help each other survive and raise our families together.
In regards to top dollar2000's original post:
I feel like I am about to waste a considerable amount of time replying to this, but there are some horribly gross generalisations that need to be pointed out, and hopefully understood, to where you will never resort to such juvenilia tactics. I just came on this site to see how filming on this movie was going, since it's being done in my hometown of Baton Rouge, on the campus of the school I normally attend (LSU), but I feel like I've been sucked into this debate as a very open minded yet highly-opinionated person who hates generalised information.
And I am definitely not one of those "blacks who whine." I graduated among the top members of my class, and the top Arts student at the prestigious boarding school I attended, for which I got a fee waiver because my family couldn't afford it but my grades were superior enough to attend... where is my scholarship, because I know I sure as hell deserve one, minority or otherwise. I don't have time to complain about reparations, I have too much ambition to wait for money not owe to me personally. I am sitting in a computer room over 5000 miles from home only because of two student loans and a Pell Grant, which is based on income, not race, because I want to better my education- which I'm sure will speak for itself in the following post. Apologies for sounding either pretentious or smug- as you will soon note, I have not nor will not forget my humble beginnings.
Attacking points one through four immediately, do you understand why any of these four institutions were put in place? The United Negro College Fund is run by African-Americans like any other non-profit organization. It's no different Rhodes, Marshall, Fulbright or other prestigious scholarship. Bottom line on this point, it's a charity organization and it has absolutely no impact on your life. If you or your family choose to donate, fantastic, but it is not government funds or any other socially-draining policy.
As far as Black History Month, when was the last time you were at an institution with a proper Black History Month. When you went to history classes, did anyone drill black leaders or change their curricula to reflect Black History Month. For two years I went to a predominately-black school back in the states, thought to be in a particularly unsafe neighbourhood in Baton Rouge (my parents were so afraid I'd get shot) and in February, there was little more than a few posters reminding it was Black History Month. Like Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and AIDS Awareness, it is another rarely celebrated occasion that probably has little or no impact on your life. My mom, who didn't want me to grow ignorant of black leaders, would make me, my brother, and my sister do research on a different person each week, mostly because no school I went to would.
Another well-lauded argument, though weak and therefore I wouldn't personally use it in my construct, is that everyday we are taught "White History." Of course, only when it's labelled as such it stands out, but honestly think about every historical figure you've learned about (apart from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Rosa Parks). The majority of the people we learn about in the American education domain are whites, some of whom have did little more than many unfortunately remotely-unknown black figures.
History, no matter who shapes it, belongs to all of us, white, black and otherwise, and in that respect I wish that everyday could be Black History day as well as American Indian History, Spanish History, Asian History, etc. (Each of those mentioned also have a specified history month, but I am sure you researched that before posting) All of us have great historical backings and until teachers and textbooks learn to incorporate all of our ancestors throughout the eras, and not just Native Americans dying of Old World diseases, Chinese immigrants being overworked and underpaid when the railroads were being built, Irish immigrants sold into a servitude short of slavery, I don't see a problem having a month to celebrate the achievements of those who aren't mentioned in textbooks. If it weren't for a black man, many of our close relations would be dead due to heart complications. In 1891, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams was the first person to perform open-heart surgery... more so first man to open someone's chest cavity without the person dying of infection. And John Hopps, a black Canadian, invented the first pacemaker. Ironically, his invention keeps the some of the very people, who fervently didn't want him to attend their schools, alive.
As far as BET, let me start off by saying it is probably the most offensive station to me, as a young, intelligent African-American. It is not a station to herald as it demoralizes its very audience. Have you seen the station lately? It is a vehicle of promotion to account for the black ideal of being able to "buy back our 40 acres," littered with fast food adverts (MacDonald's knows its biggest market is African-Americans so they keep their attempts to poison us fresh on the airwaves- and as a smart company, I can't fault them), malt liquor adverts, and cash advance outlets. And MTV has not become a virtual BET. This is an argument only based on perception. Last time I was online trying to see what I've been missing the past few months on MTV, as I type this letter from the United Kingdom, it was reruns of Jessica and Ashlee Simpson, the Real World, and MADE. While there is a considerable lack of music on the Music Television network, the programs running are not at all geared toward African-Americans and I am sure Nielson ratings will show its biggest fan base are high school Caucasian teenagers.
And there are many television stations related to ethnicity. Have you ever been to Texas or Florida. A third of the stations you get without satellite are catering to their Hispanic populations, and why not? They have a desire to see shows featuring their people, dealing with situations specific to Hispanic interest, and they are probably owned by Hispanic entrepreneurs. Your argument, again, shows lack of depth in the fact that none of these stations are provided by the government and therefore do not attack your way of life. Before I left for England, I watched nothing but BBC America, which is designed to introduce British television into America. It has the exact same impact as BET or Telemundo.
In regards to "stop the ancestor thing," as you so eloquently put it, I'm sure you've heard the 19th-century Spanish philosopher Santayana's famous quote: "Those who refuse to learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them." And as far as "that happened so far back no living person could recall it," you are aware that the Civil Rights Movement is only 40 years old. My parents went through it, they're still alive, my great-grandmother was born 1892 and though she recently passed, she lived through it. American History is a young one and yes, many people are still alive to remember. When four little girls were killed in a church bombing, people today still remember, when lynching were rampant and photographed as spectacles, people now still remember. Stop trying to demean history just because it is of little importance to you. In your egocentric and apparently ethnocentric view, you fail to understand that I care about my past as much as I do my future, and I would not be who I am today if my ancestors hadn't sacrificed, hadn't stayed on that bus, hadn't died for me. How dare you ask me to forget my roots.
Finally, and the most flagrant statement I have read since the graffiti in the boys washroom, you "can't recall seeing much in the news about 2 whites shooting each other or robbing banks." Did you forget what happened in April, 1999? For most of the victims, it would have been a normal day, but it became known in history as the Columbine Tragedy, or the Littleton Massacre. I do believe the killers where 2 whites shooting others before they turned the guns on themselves. Should I go into how the majority of serial killers are white males, or how all of the American presidents are white males and they give orders to kill people all the time. You know why you will not see as much on television about all the shootings of these whites you don't see- because we are in a culture of fear. The media wants you to fear black men like myself and by showing every single black man who is sent to jail for one shooting or robbery, but not showing all of the crimes done by Caucasians, that fear is promulgated. As a matter of fact, this was taken from PBS' Frontline program, based on a breakdown of modern crimes:
Did you know the same amount accounts for welfare recipients? Two-thirds of those who receive government aide are white, but this information is coyly buried under the rug. What about “White Collar” criminals, embezzlers who “skim off a measly million” of corporate funds to supplement their bank accounts. The fat-cats at Enron, Em-Clone, even the Domestic Diva Martha Stewart, all stole from loyal workers, like our parents. And those associated who were jailed and not simply fined are in minimum-security lush federal penitentiaries. That money they skimmed, by the way, was many of the hardworking employees who form the backbone of the companies’ pension, their means of living after retirement. When was the last time you saw a black “White Collar” criminal, while you are asking these rhetorical questions? An inner-city youth might rob another inner-city youth of shoes, but he is not robbing an entire corporation, stealing the livelihood of multiple people who give so much time and energy to that establishment. So, who’s the bigger criminal?
It would be absolutely lovely to raise our families together in harmony, but we cannot do this ignorantly. Ignorance is the key reason no one really uses that word correctly. Ignorance isn't stupidity, but the lack of understanding, knowledge, on a subject. Your post highlights your ignorance as a typical American who has done little research by means of understanding others peoples cultures, through sociological imagination, and you would do well to, in the future, research and substantiate any claims you make, before you post your ignorance in public.
I think, for the sake of this thread, I must add that the movie Dukes of Hazzard is indeed not about racism. Also, the Confederate flag does make me flinch when I see it, but I understand it, like Black History Month, is a part of someone's past, and I wouldn't want anyone to not have pride in where they came from. To say I grew up in Louisiana, my neighbours flew them high in their yards, yet the kids of the neighbourhood, we all played together, went to school together, and I know that while a flag is a symbol, it is just a cloth. One should not delve right into assumptions on hate or bigotry upon sight.
The Union, for those of you who know your American History as well as me, didn't want slavery to end any more than the Confederates anyway. Slavery was ended as another means of weakening Southern production as a repercussion of their annexation.
Cheers xx
"Everyone sees what you seem to be, but few know what you are."
Niccolo Machiavelli
Sorry otherwise for neglecting this journal... my bad! I, being human, forget to do stuff, usually when I am not getting paid to do them of course.
If you know me, I love to debate. So, I signed up on IMDB for a debate that started about the Dukes of Hazzard and moved on to racism.
The original guys post was:
Now as for this African Jedi guys comment......grow up you and probably none of any of your family you ever met were slaves so drop the racists issue. I'm by no means racists, I have plenty african american relation (who don't whine poor blacks). Let's this about this whole black racists for a minute..let's see
1. African Americans get College Scholarship Funds (United Negro College Fund)
2. African Americans get Black History Month
3. African Americans get BET (Black Entertainment Television) their own station
4. African Americans get more and more minority benefits every year.
Not to mention MTV might as well be BET 2.
I don't see a French Channel, or a all Latin Channel or a all polish channel.
We keep getting blamed from some Blacks for being such bad people,
1. They don't know us all
2. Stop the ancestor thing that happened so far back no living person could recall it.
3. I can't recall seeing much in the news about 2 whites shooting each other or robbing banks. You are killing your own origin, don't blame us.
Just live your life noramlly, let all of us just get along and help each other survive and raise our families together.
In regards to top dollar2000's original post:
I feel like I am about to waste a considerable amount of time replying to this, but there are some horribly gross generalisations that need to be pointed out, and hopefully understood, to where you will never resort to such juvenilia tactics. I just came on this site to see how filming on this movie was going, since it's being done in my hometown of Baton Rouge, on the campus of the school I normally attend (LSU), but I feel like I've been sucked into this debate as a very open minded yet highly-opinionated person who hates generalised information.
And I am definitely not one of those "blacks who whine." I graduated among the top members of my class, and the top Arts student at the prestigious boarding school I attended, for which I got a fee waiver because my family couldn't afford it but my grades were superior enough to attend... where is my scholarship, because I know I sure as hell deserve one, minority or otherwise. I don't have time to complain about reparations, I have too much ambition to wait for money not owe to me personally. I am sitting in a computer room over 5000 miles from home only because of two student loans and a Pell Grant, which is based on income, not race, because I want to better my education- which I'm sure will speak for itself in the following post. Apologies for sounding either pretentious or smug- as you will soon note, I have not nor will not forget my humble beginnings.
Attacking points one through four immediately, do you understand why any of these four institutions were put in place? The United Negro College Fund is run by African-Americans like any other non-profit organization. It's no different Rhodes, Marshall, Fulbright or other prestigious scholarship. Bottom line on this point, it's a charity organization and it has absolutely no impact on your life. If you or your family choose to donate, fantastic, but it is not government funds or any other socially-draining policy.
As far as Black History Month, when was the last time you were at an institution with a proper Black History Month. When you went to history classes, did anyone drill black leaders or change their curricula to reflect Black History Month. For two years I went to a predominately-black school back in the states, thought to be in a particularly unsafe neighbourhood in Baton Rouge (my parents were so afraid I'd get shot) and in February, there was little more than a few posters reminding it was Black History Month. Like Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and AIDS Awareness, it is another rarely celebrated occasion that probably has little or no impact on your life. My mom, who didn't want me to grow ignorant of black leaders, would make me, my brother, and my sister do research on a different person each week, mostly because no school I went to would.
Another well-lauded argument, though weak and therefore I wouldn't personally use it in my construct, is that everyday we are taught "White History." Of course, only when it's labelled as such it stands out, but honestly think about every historical figure you've learned about (apart from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Rosa Parks). The majority of the people we learn about in the American education domain are whites, some of whom have did little more than many unfortunately remotely-unknown black figures.
History, no matter who shapes it, belongs to all of us, white, black and otherwise, and in that respect I wish that everyday could be Black History day as well as American Indian History, Spanish History, Asian History, etc. (Each of those mentioned also have a specified history month, but I am sure you researched that before posting) All of us have great historical backings and until teachers and textbooks learn to incorporate all of our ancestors throughout the eras, and not just Native Americans dying of Old World diseases, Chinese immigrants being overworked and underpaid when the railroads were being built, Irish immigrants sold into a servitude short of slavery, I don't see a problem having a month to celebrate the achievements of those who aren't mentioned in textbooks. If it weren't for a black man, many of our close relations would be dead due to heart complications. In 1891, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams was the first person to perform open-heart surgery... more so first man to open someone's chest cavity without the person dying of infection. And John Hopps, a black Canadian, invented the first pacemaker. Ironically, his invention keeps the some of the very people, who fervently didn't want him to attend their schools, alive.
As far as BET, let me start off by saying it is probably the most offensive station to me, as a young, intelligent African-American. It is not a station to herald as it demoralizes its very audience. Have you seen the station lately? It is a vehicle of promotion to account for the black ideal of being able to "buy back our 40 acres," littered with fast food adverts (MacDonald's knows its biggest market is African-Americans so they keep their attempts to poison us fresh on the airwaves- and as a smart company, I can't fault them), malt liquor adverts, and cash advance outlets. And MTV has not become a virtual BET. This is an argument only based on perception. Last time I was online trying to see what I've been missing the past few months on MTV, as I type this letter from the United Kingdom, it was reruns of Jessica and Ashlee Simpson, the Real World, and MADE. While there is a considerable lack of music on the Music Television network, the programs running are not at all geared toward African-Americans and I am sure Nielson ratings will show its biggest fan base are high school Caucasian teenagers.
And there are many television stations related to ethnicity. Have you ever been to Texas or Florida. A third of the stations you get without satellite are catering to their Hispanic populations, and why not? They have a desire to see shows featuring their people, dealing with situations specific to Hispanic interest, and they are probably owned by Hispanic entrepreneurs. Your argument, again, shows lack of depth in the fact that none of these stations are provided by the government and therefore do not attack your way of life. Before I left for England, I watched nothing but BBC America, which is designed to introduce British television into America. It has the exact same impact as BET or Telemundo.
In regards to "stop the ancestor thing," as you so eloquently put it, I'm sure you've heard the 19th-century Spanish philosopher Santayana's famous quote: "Those who refuse to learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them." And as far as "that happened so far back no living person could recall it," you are aware that the Civil Rights Movement is only 40 years old. My parents went through it, they're still alive, my great-grandmother was born 1892 and though she recently passed, she lived through it. American History is a young one and yes, many people are still alive to remember. When four little girls were killed in a church bombing, people today still remember, when lynching were rampant and photographed as spectacles, people now still remember. Stop trying to demean history just because it is of little importance to you. In your egocentric and apparently ethnocentric view, you fail to understand that I care about my past as much as I do my future, and I would not be who I am today if my ancestors hadn't sacrificed, hadn't stayed on that bus, hadn't died for me. How dare you ask me to forget my roots.
Finally, and the most flagrant statement I have read since the graffiti in the boys washroom, you "can't recall seeing much in the news about 2 whites shooting each other or robbing banks." Did you forget what happened in April, 1999? For most of the victims, it would have been a normal day, but it became known in history as the Columbine Tragedy, or the Littleton Massacre. I do believe the killers where 2 whites shooting others before they turned the guns on themselves. Should I go into how the majority of serial killers are white males, or how all of the American presidents are white males and they give orders to kill people all the time. You know why you will not see as much on television about all the shootings of these whites you don't see- because we are in a culture of fear. The media wants you to fear black men like myself and by showing every single black man who is sent to jail for one shooting or robbery, but not showing all of the crimes done by Caucasians, that fear is promulgated. As a matter of fact, this was taken from PBS' Frontline program, based on a breakdown of modern crimes:
Finally, more than a century after the end of the Civil War that freed Aaron Bosket, we are still paying the price for the legacy of slavery and racism. It shows in how we think about crime. About three-quarters of all the crimes reported to the police are committed by whites, and there is good evidence that when social, economic, and neighbourhood factors are accounted for, there is little difference in crime rates between whites and blacks. But most white Americans instinctively see violence as a black problem-it is they, the ones living in the inner city, the people on welfare, the faces in prison. This makes it easier to call for more police and prisons. But imagine if your child was suddenly transported to the inner city and you could do nothing to remove him from there. All you could do would be to come up with a policy recommendation. You might advocate more cops and jails. More likely, you would want a program that removed guns from the streets, created good jobs, built better housing, and, in particular, made sure your son or daughter lived in a family with good, loving adults.
Did you know the same amount accounts for welfare recipients? Two-thirds of those who receive government aide are white, but this information is coyly buried under the rug. What about “White Collar” criminals, embezzlers who “skim off a measly million” of corporate funds to supplement their bank accounts. The fat-cats at Enron, Em-Clone, even the Domestic Diva Martha Stewart, all stole from loyal workers, like our parents. And those associated who were jailed and not simply fined are in minimum-security lush federal penitentiaries. That money they skimmed, by the way, was many of the hardworking employees who form the backbone of the companies’ pension, their means of living after retirement. When was the last time you saw a black “White Collar” criminal, while you are asking these rhetorical questions? An inner-city youth might rob another inner-city youth of shoes, but he is not robbing an entire corporation, stealing the livelihood of multiple people who give so much time and energy to that establishment. So, who’s the bigger criminal?
It would be absolutely lovely to raise our families together in harmony, but we cannot do this ignorantly. Ignorance is the key reason no one really uses that word correctly. Ignorance isn't stupidity, but the lack of understanding, knowledge, on a subject. Your post highlights your ignorance as a typical American who has done little research by means of understanding others peoples cultures, through sociological imagination, and you would do well to, in the future, research and substantiate any claims you make, before you post your ignorance in public.
I think, for the sake of this thread, I must add that the movie Dukes of Hazzard is indeed not about racism. Also, the Confederate flag does make me flinch when I see it, but I understand it, like Black History Month, is a part of someone's past, and I wouldn't want anyone to not have pride in where they came from. To say I grew up in Louisiana, my neighbours flew them high in their yards, yet the kids of the neighbourhood, we all played together, went to school together, and I know that while a flag is a symbol, it is just a cloth. One should not delve right into assumptions on hate or bigotry upon sight.
The Union, for those of you who know your American History as well as me, didn't want slavery to end any more than the Confederates anyway. Slavery was ended as another means of weakening Southern production as a repercussion of their annexation.
Cheers xx
"Everyone sees what you seem to be, but few know what you are."
Niccolo Machiavelli
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