Black lives matters

In the light of black lives matter week, I thought I'd share my opinion on the violences that's taking place in America upon young black boys. One thing we should discuss or address is the social and economically disparities that eventually leads to this unjust situation. It's easy to sit here and blame the police officer for killing young black men. But why do black boys shoot black boys. Why are gangs still relevant in our communities? Why did we sell drugs to ourselves? Why d we feel the need to create this terrible image about our race? When it comes to situation like Mr. Browns', I totally agree that he should've been indicted. Shooting a person 12 of 13 bullets is absolutely awful. I don't want to hear about how that was his first time he had used in weapon and stuff. Isn't It a part of an officer is to train to use a hand gun. If felt like Mr. Was a threat, he could've kneecapped him and arrest him instead of brutally killing him like that. At any rate, we as black people are quick to create riots and blame the police officer for shooting our young boys. When in reality, black boys create these awful imagine that makes it difficult for society to accept them as honorable and respectful men. The unfortunate part is that action that takes place in black communities tints all black men. You could be a well educated and successful black man and yet be subjected based upon perception that our communities has created for blacks. Before we can start riots and screaming social imbalance, we have fix the first thing that creates this doubt and subjective attitudes towards black men which derives from the communities we live in. I guess I can say I'm thankful. I'm thankful that I have parents that values education. Parents who constantly stressed obeying the law and having the common sense of not trying to approach a police officer in A threatening way. As young black men, I think we should look at ourselves first. It's unfortunate that we are losing some black men. I send my condolences to Mr. Browns' mother and family but this perception has to CHANGE!

Catfish

As many were quick to point out, the relationship between Nev and Angela in the documentary "Catfish," was disturbing on a great many levels. Yes, Angela did essentially create her own alternative reality through social media to fool someone into believing that she was an other person entirely--but surprisingly, my first instinct was not to condemn her, but rather to pity her. It is quite clear that for anyone to go to such dramatic lengths as she did, to build a relationship based entirely on lies, then he or she must be in a great amount of pain, extremely lonely, and very unsatisfied in life. This is not to justify Angela's actions, as she did end up also hurting Nev and possibly her husband, by them. But just to say that it is apparent that she had some sort of underlying mental condition and needed to seek professional help to deal with her issues and get her life back on track.

Self-Acceptance and Escape

The biggest point in the documentary to me was that this woman Angela was not self accepting and with the overwhelming amount of disappointment in her life, she decided to create her own escape. She wanted the maximum amount of pleasure out of this new life or persona she created, however she couldn't careless as to the maximum amount of pain she caused. She became so absorbed into this fairy tale she created that she drug Nev through an emotional roller coaster, cheated on her husband, and forced her daughter to lie. Seems like to me she has a lot of morality issues she needs to be cleared up. Possibly therapy, what do you guys think?

Our Real Self

Ever since the day we were born, we have been taught that we are our own person and that there is no one like us. Well today Dr. J had spiked my interest by suggesting a different view. She suggests that we in fact have two "selves". I find this assertion to actually be fairly accurate. It seems to me that we do have two selves. Our physical self is constantly being preceded and proceeded by another self, our digital self. Every American  who has grown up around the advance of technology has a digital self even if they have never had a Facebook, an Instagram, or have never ordered anything online. The fact is that when we are born, our names are recorded along with our height, weight, social security number, eye color, and hair color among other things. From the moment we first see the light in the hospital room, we will be kept track of for the rest of our lives. Even a person wasn't born in a hospital or regulatory medical institution, the United States makes gaining a digital self virtually unavoidable.


Just think of all of the things you have to do using technology. If you want to ever drive a car, own a house, go on a vacation, eat at a restaurant that doesn't take cash, or if you want to buy something online you will have to do something that involves using or creating your digital self. When you go to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get a drivers license, your picture is stored on a computer and transferred to a database. This insures that you can be matched to any tickets, accidents, or mishaps you commit. Unless you have $30,000 in cash ready to give to the person selling it, you have to use your digital self to purchase a nice car and likewise to purchase a house.


We also carry parts of our digital selves with us everywhere we go. Our cell phones!!! If you are like the typical American, your cell rarely ever leaves your side. Our phone numbers are apart of our digital selves. At any time the government can use our phone conversations, text messages and pictures against us in court cases. These phones also often connect us to other parts of our digital selves. Snapchat, Instagram, GroupMe, Facebook, and Twitter accounts can all be linked to us and reflect us to people we don't even know most of the time. Every time we access these accounts or even play online e games that require us to create accounts or use our emails, we are shaping another part of our digital self. The sad fact is that, in most cases, we spend more time shaping our digital selves than we do our real selves, but who am I to tell you which one is real.

LOL! Raz has a tramp stamp.

Catfishing

                Let me first start by saying that its really funny that the Raz had a trampstamp! LOL! That was completely unexpected and was worth mentioning.

                On a more serious note, Cat fishing is a modern phenomenon that continues to happen today. After watching the first half of the movie, I discussed it with Dr. Johnson because I really did not see any moral dilemmas in the situation. She explained to me that it is morally wrong to make up one identity. At this time, I thought that Megan was an actual attractive girl. She continued further by saying that if you think about it everyone cat fishes because people only post what people want to see on their social media.

                Thinking about this, I feel that she is completely correct. As Sarte said, what we don't do is just as important as the things that we do, do. Base of this concept, we attempt to make ourselves look good on social media. For example, people will take selfies and put a bunch of filters on to make them look good. I've said plenty of people, male and female, that look nothing like the pictures that they post on instagram. Their personalities are nothing like the ones they post on twitter.

                Of course, in the case of blackfish the circumstances were a lot more extreme. She created alter egos in the form of different Facebook pages and formulated a well developed lie. However, she did it for the same reason we post instagram selfies with filters. She did it out of love and acceptance. Isn't that what everyone wants? What do yall think? 

The Pros and Cons of Religion

The Pros and Cons of Religion

When I think of Religion, I think of Christianity. In a sense all the major religions are contain the same central themes. The question is though. What are the pros and cons of religion and which one out ways the other. On one side, it gives people hope and who doesn’t like a little hope every once in a while. In addition, it brings charity into the world. It was discussed in class that Bellvue church in Memphis raises 2.2 million dollars in one offering session once a year. That money is used to fund the summer programs for the church. 2.2 million is an amazing number to think when it is just one church that can raise that much and have it go towards something for the community.

            When I brought the topic up to my roommate he responded that if you can get a bunch of people to come together on a Sunday and spend 1-8 hours doing beneficial things for and with their community, that results is much better than the alternative, doing harmful things towards the community. As Sarte once said, it is just as important what you don’t do as what you do, do.

            Now let us look on the other side. With religion come misinterpretations in the writing. The first example that comes to mind is the discrimination towards homosexuals. Another example is the 9/11 bombers. I feel like the reason why they bombed the U.S was because they were misguided. They believed that they were securing a good place next to their god in the afterlife.

            In conclusions, though there are bad that comes with religion. There is also a lot of good. Bringing help to the poor, raising charity, and giving people hope outweigh the bad. What do yall think?

Emotions = Games

So let me start by saying that this movie had my full attention THE WHOLE TIME. Documentaries usually don’t, but this peaked my interest. My first thought after he started talking about his relationship with Abby, a seven-year-old child with an amazing artistic ability who was allowed to just start sending Niv paintings free of charge is hard to believe. When he started forming a relationship with Angela, the mother, who had all of these crazy stories about all of the adventures her children were getting into, I couldn’t help but think “How did he not know her life was bs?” after the truth was finally revealed. With the title of the movie, we already know what to expect, but there were just way to many eccentricities about the stories that Angela/Abby/Megan told. Even after Abby and her friend told him the truth, he still hung out with the family as if nothing was wrong. He’ll always have the bittersweet memories of Angela and he made it worse by adding the memories of their day at the beach. Then on top of all of that, Niv didn’t let Angela’s husband know exactly what his wife was up to. I just seem to have a hard time sympathizing with that woman solely because of her actions. She was married and grown, and I can’t help but think of her as pathetic and disgusting for her actions (i.e. sexting, telling Niv she missed him and cared for him even though she has a husband). My question is, what type of person plays with others emotions this way? Sure, we hear about men and young leading others on and flirting with numerous people with the knowledge that it will never go farther than they want it to. But are those two instances the same or are they different? Are emotions just a different type of game to play when you’re too old for board games and nothing else excites you anymore? Is catfishing the new “trend” society has decided to partake in, despite the feelings involved?