Nou led, Nou la

Nou led, Nou la

The phrase “Nou led, Nou la” is Haitian phrase coined during the time of the major disaster that took place in Haiti. A 7.1 earthquake that shook the whole island of Hispaniola and destroyed the country’s capital and some surrounding cities. When I heard this news, I I was immediately devastated primarily because I knew many people with family and friends in the country but mostly because the country already suffers from poverty and now this major earthquake. With a unstable government, Haitians are often taken advantage of because they would appoint leaders into the office who are supposed to help the country but end up only bringing it down.

Nou led, Nou la

The amount of pictures of dead bodies being loaded in to flatbed trucks to be dumped is a site that would stick with anyone. Being trapped under buildings for days being crushed by the heavy walls is enough to dampen anyone’s spirit. Yet it is amazing that there were so many people who were being rescued even 20 days after the earthquake had taken place.

Nou led, Nou la

What words of consolidation can one tell kids who have lost their mother, father, and other relatives to the buildings that crushed them? What words can be told to the mother who lost her whole family while they were waiting in the car for her to return from the building? How does one try to begin to heal the pain that these people are currently feeling?

Nou led, Nou la

As an onlooker from the United States of America, you think to yourself, “What can I do to help?” At times like this is when you really realize how much you take for granted even the simple things in your lives. Yet, it is at times of destruction when we really understand the importance of the people in our lives. So we try to help by sending donations through charities and rushing our doctors and nurses over to the country in need of our help; Forgetting that this country has always been in our backyard. They have always needed the help that we are only currently offering because of their current situation. Why is it that we waited until they experienced so much devastation before we decided to help them when they needed the help all along.

Nou led, Nou la

Hopefully we continue to be of help to these people, our brothers and sisters, in Haiti. As much as we hate to admit it, we are all connected to each other in more ways than one. The simple fact that we are human beings though, should be enough. So as we help our brot-hers and sisters in Haiti we should think remember that this can one day be our great country that will need help of other nations around us.
Nou tout led, Nou tout la.


'Oooowwwwwwwwwww"

Extra credit Emmit till

Emmitt Till
The story of Emmitt Till showed the world how cruel white people were even to children. It is a crazy notion that whites would be so afraid and fearful that they would harm a child who did something as meaningless as whistle. What even makes matters worse is the fact that the killers weren’t convicted but they had the nerve to want to sell their story for about $4000. Did they take some gratification in being tried as the killers? This so called trial proved the injustice in the state of Mississippi back in the 1950s. If the shoe was on the other foot however, I’m sure that the black person would have been beaten, stoned, and tortured to death whether or not his was guilty of the crime wouldn’t have mattered. I look at the current times and I see that we have come far as a whole but there are still some instances where there are minorities that are being sentenced with lack of circumstantial evidence that actually proves the person is guilty. I commend, though, Mamie who was Emmitt’s mother for being such a strong woman and for allowing the world to see the cruelty of the people in Mississippi. She allowed the brutally battered body of her dead 14 year old boy to be publicized. Emmitt was beaten to the point where his face was hardly recognizable. They disfigured him and threw him into the river yet this information was withheld during the trial proceedings. The many questions left unanswered to a people who were starving to know. The Bryant brothers basically got off scotch free like letting people think that it was permissible to kill a black person simply because they (whites) felt as though they were the more superior race. The poem that Prof. McNair shared with the class was one the alerted different emotions in my mind. Thoughts ran rampant wanting to know how could it be in the nature of someone to be so cruel. The whole situation could have been avoided. I guess these brothers were trying to make a point by killing Emmitt. He was merely a boy who did not understand the ways of the south. On a vacation from his hometown he ended up dying in Mississippi leaving behind a lonely mother. What was also disturbing was the fact that no one in the house could do nothing to save Emmitt for fear of being killed themselves. I can’t fully comprehend the fact that these whites just barged into a home that was not theirs and took out a little boy and killed him. If only we could go back in time and gather the proper evidence, force witness to speak and tell the truth and try and convict these men for the killers that they are. I wonder how the wife felt knowing that she was the cause of the death of this child. How did she feel after segregation was done away with? How did she cope with knowing that she was the cause of an innocent life being taken way too early?

'Oooowwwwwwwwwww"

Quizzes

'Oooowwwwwwwwwww"

Professor McNair- Reflection 22

I have had the pleasure to take a second class with Professor McNair. The first time I took his class I was taking Introduction to Education in the fall semester of 2009. When I first told my sister that I was taking the course she asked with what professor. So I told her I was taking it with McNair and she said that she had taken the class but didn’t take any more classes with him because it was way too much work for her to do. I knew that I would love it after the first couple of classes so I stuck around. The fact is, I love a challenge. Honestly, this had been the first time in a very long time that I had felt like I was being challenged in the classroom. The first time in a while that I knew that I had to stay on top of my work because the professor was no walk in the park. By all means I mean no disrespect about that statement. My favorite teachers were always the ones who would assign work that had meaning. Not to assign work for the sake of assigning work. I had two teachers like this previously. One was Kathleen Serio who I had as an English teacher for grades six through eight because I was in the gifted program. She allowed me to discover my love for English. Not to mention that she had also taught two of my older brothers. We were reading books that were not meant for our grade and she coached us to our understanding of the material learned. Kind of like what Prof. McNair does in the classroom discussions. The second teacher that I had that made a great impression in the book of my life was Dr. Nerry Louis. She was my twelfth grade honors English teacher. The class revolved around literature and was interesting at all times to say the very least. Nerry had a reputation amongst the students to be the hardest English teach at my high school. If you earned a C in Ms. Louis’ class, you know that you would have warned an A in any other teacher’s class. She was that tough but I enjoyed it. She was a no nonsense type of teacher who still allowed room for her students to get comfortable. Now I have Prof. McNair to add to my list of favorite teachers. Favorite educators. They are a part of the reason I actually decided to become an English teacher. I want to be able to impact the lives of my students the same way that Prof McNair, Dr. Louis, and Ms. Serio had done in mine. I would also implement some of their teaching strategies that I’ve learned while being their student.
'Oooowwwwwwwwwww"

Romance- Reflection 21

After reading the article by Deepak Chopra entitled “Spirit of Romance” I evaluated that which I called love and basically went along with the steps to see if I had experienced Deepak’s definition of love and romance. Love has no gender. So therefore I believe that it can be applied to same sex as well as heterosexual love. I do not understand why we place so much emphasis on heterosexual versus homosexual. We place ourselves in gender limited boxes and anyone who defies those rule and regulations for gender are cast out and rejected. We base gender on the sex of a person, so what do we say for those who are characteristics of both sexes? Do we automatically cast them out of our society merely because they do not look as normal as we expect them to? Love is a feeling that can be associated with anyone no matter the gender. The fact that we take so much of our time judging other people takes away from what really matters most of the time. It’s high time people in general stop focusing o what really doesn’t count in the long run. Does who a person love constitutes grounds to determine whether or not that person is a good citizen or a bad one? The four phases of romance which include attraction, infatuation, courtship, and intimacy can happen to human of any gender. Needless to say that this doesn’t mean that they can be of any age. To me, the only thing that should matter when it comes to love is a person’s age as well as their mate. I believe this so that we can prevent pedophiles from thinking that they are in love with a four year old. And age should only matter up until a person is considered an adult and then after that they are free to do whomever and what so ever they please. But homosexuality versus heterosexuality should not matter when it comes to love. I don’t believe that anyone can tell a homosexual couple that they aren’t in love any more than you can tell a heterosexual couple the same thing. I’ve seen some examples where people would think that a homosexual relationship is different from a heterosexual one. It doesn’t differ because both couples can experience cheating, arguing, intimacy and etcetera. Hopefully we can one day reach a state of peace where who a person is in love with doesn’t generalize their personality or characteristics.

'Oooowwwwwwwwwww"

Transsexuality- Reflection 20

My understanding of intersexuality as been expanded after reading the article “What is Intersexuality.” An intersexual is a person that has characteristics of both sexes. To be more specific they have one ovary and one testes. They are called hermaphrodites. To be honest, I’ve heard of hermaphrodites and I knew that they were born with both gender characteristics. I wasn’t aware that there were pseudohermaphrodites for the different types of hermaphrodites depending on which sex genitalia they had more characteristics. I always understood it to be that they were very rare and sometimes hardly happens. I also know that often times parents for these children end up choosing their child’s sex and then providing them with steroids and hormone pills so that the child can grow properly in to the sex that was chosen for them. Trannies, transsexuals, Lady bois are all the same thing. They are men who dress p in women’s clothing who basically feel as though they were placed in to the wrong genders body. These men often get sex changes and they have breast implants in order to give the outward appearance of the woman they desire to be. I’ve never met anyone who has become a transsexual but that doesn’t mean that my mind is not open to them. I believe that there may chemical imbalances within thie person to make them feel the way they do and I wouldn’t want them to be unhappy in their own skin. There isn’t anything wrong with seeking happiness. Others believe that changing your sex is a sin against God because he has created in his own image. God also gives us the feeling to want to be happy and complete and I feel that if a person feels like they would be complete after doing the sex change surgery then why not let that person achieve the happiness for which they strive? The study of these topics have been useful in the sense that they provided me with more in depth information as to the intersexual and transsexual life. Not only that, it also allowed me to be able to call hermaphrodites intersexuals. Intersexuals sounds much more pleasant to the ear than the afore mentioned word. Growing up you hear a lot of people make jokes about intersexuals and transsexuals and tease each other about actually being one, not knowing the severity of the topic and the situation. It must really be hard for people who classify themselves of either one of the two groups to live in such a close-minded society.
'Oooowwwwwwwwwww"

Same Sex- Reflection 19

What are my thoughts to the cause of homosexuality? This topic is one that called for a lot of thinking and evaluating of beliefs and values that are of my family. Not necessarily mine considering I have yet to really develop my own thoughts on many of the things I was raised to believe. First and foremost, homosexuality has been around for a very long time because it is even spoken about in the bible which is one of the oldest written literary works known to man. It is said that ONE of the reasons that Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed was because of homosexuality not to mention all of the other sexual immoralities that caused the city’s destruction. Some people fail to understand that homosexuality was not the only reason for the city’s destruction. This is only what we have come to know because of what someone else written. With that being said, we cannot determine the truth as to why the city was destroyed. The bible is a piece of work that many authors collaborated stories and made No one knows what was really said and done in those times because there isn’t anyone who is alive to tell their story and even if there was, it would be so many people speculating that it would be less of a hassle to just disregard what is said. I believe that people of the same sex that seek a relationship with each other was defined as something that is supposedly “bad” out of fear by the general population. People are always afraid of what they do not know and this is just an example of that statement. People place too much of an emphasis on gender and gender roles. Feelings can develop for whom ever, who are we to judge someone and tell them they are wrong simply because they are a part of the minority group? My views on homosexuality were impacted by the study of this topic only in a sense of enlightenment. The new information learned allows me to keeps my stance that people should have the right to be with and love whomever they please. It shouldn’t be society’s prerogative to place itself in the lives of each of the inhabitants only to try and rule them with the negativity in their words and actions. As for thinking what the actual cause for homosexuality may be, I do not have a stance. I’m not sure that it was caused by anything in particular. Saying that it has a cause makes it seem as if it is a disease or something. I’d like to believe that homosexuality has always been around and that people have always chosen their lifestyle and some people even have their beliefs that they were born the way they are which is not highly unlikely being that people are also born straight.
'Oooowwwwwwwwwww"