Filling in the Blanks

Wow. So the reading for last night dropped a bombshell. I can't say I didn't see something like this happening with the hinting at the cuts on the baby's throat, but still it came as a shock. Sethe killed her children in order to keep them from being taken in to slavery. Although it is a very rash decision, Sethe obviously thinks it it the right thing to do. She doesn't want her children to have to go through the same pain she endured. When Sethe first tells Paul D after he confronts her with the newspaper clipping he leaves. It seems like Paul isn't coming back, and she knows it.

Now, from my perspective I thought that Paul should have stayed, that he wasn't being sympathetic. But I think we could almost flip this idea and say that the readers who agree with Sethe's ideas are too sympathetic. We see the pain and the struggles Sethe has gone through to protect and provide for these children. We know what she is thinking, but Paul does not. Although he knows Sethe, he can't seem to wrap his mind around killing the children. Paul knows the struggles of slavery. He was in jail for a long time because of something he did while he was enslaved. You would think he might be a little more sympathetic towards Sethe, but he's not.

When you read this, what did you think about Sethe's choice of killing her children? Do you think Paul should have stayed based on their past in Sweet Home the fact he came back for her? Do you think Paul is coming back?

I Can't Breathe

This evening I was looking online and stumbled upon an article talking about Jon Stewart getting serious about the Eric Garner case. As some of you know I wrote another post on Jon Stewart. In that post I mentioned that Jon rarely gets serious, and when he does it is about something that seems to matter a lot to him. In this video Jon is dumbfounded by the decision of the Grand Jury not to indict officer Daniel Pantaleo. Jon says, "I honestly don't know what to say. If comedy is tragedy plus time, I need more fucking time. But I would really settle for less fucking tragedy." 

Within a matter of weeks, two cases of white on black, police inflicted deaths have passed through the Grand Jury, choosing to not indict the white officers. Unlike with the Ferguson case, there are multiple videos on the internet showing very clearly that Garner was not being violent, and after the officer put him in a chokehold Garner said eleven times "I can't breathe." Out of all the famous last words in this world, Eric Garner's were three simple words that are now spread everywhere. People like Reggie Bush and Derrick Rose wore warm up jersey's with "I can't breathe" written on it. When LeBron James was asked about Rose's shirt he replied "It's spectaular. I loved it. I'm looking for one." 

The public has been reacting to issues as well. Many cities hosted protests, most of which were non violent. The protest at UC Berkeley on the other hand, was not. Four police officers were injured, five police vehicles were damaged, stores were looted and sacked, and tear gas was used against the protesters.

When I first hear about stores being looted, and people getting injured, my initial reaction was that it was taking things too far. I thought that although this was not the outcome that it should be, there was no reason for people to be burning down people's businesses. I later realized, that the first time I heard anything about this case, was the UC Berkeley protest. I still think that this may not be the best way to approach things, it gets people's attention. It's hard for things like this to get positive attention, and it may take something like this for people to realize the dire need for change. 

A writer from Jimmy Fallon, Jason Ross, started a hashtag on Twitter: #CrimingWhileWhite-- a play off of #BlackLivesMatter. This hashtag is to show crimes that white people get away with. Tweets came flooding in, and it became a nationwide trend. Things like shoplifting for 3 years, because he thought the worst thing that could happen to him was a stern talking to. Another guy was driving without a license and had no form of ID on him, and he was let go without a warning. Things like this that most black people do not have the luxury of experiencing. 

We may see some progress in our country's racial equality, but it seems as though we are currently going one step forward, two steps back. In the past few years things like this keep surfacing. It's depressing to see how many stories of white police officers killing black citizens. 

One story that was slightly overshadowed by the Ferguson ruling was the story of a twelve year old boy who was shot and killed in the park after playing with a toy gun. 911 recived a call saying that there is a boy who has a gun and it pointing it at people. The caller says that it is probably fake twice, but when the dispatcher relayed the message to the officers, she neglected to mention that the gun was probably fake. 

It is stories like these that are utterly heart wrenching to hear about. It seems as though no matter how many protests, petitions, or die-ins you have, things like this are going to happen. If you search "unarmed black shot by white officer" 3,130,000 results show up in .25 seconds. I was scrolling through and recognized almost none of these. Shootings like this are common, and until we reach a point where racial equality really isn't an issue, we are going to have to keep hearing about this. Do you think that point of racial equality exists? If it does, how will we know if we've gotten there? As Jon Stewart says "We are definitely not living in a post racial society, and I can imagine there are a lot of people out there that are wondering how much of a society we're living in at all?"