Racism

    Racism is almost always a sensitive subject when there are 'white' people involved. To me it seems that discrimination itself is what causes this sensitivity. I never saw the difference between myself and someone with a different skin complexion until other people began to point it out. To this day I still do not see the difference, save for hereditary levels of melanin and facial features, yet I've been called a white racist bitch in the past. Is that not stereotyping in which I was placed under a malicious category because of my own European descent?
    The Caucasian people do, indeed, have a history of bigotry and hateful acts towards other ethnicities. In fact, a few months ago I became physically ill after discovering a website devoted to a community of people who are convinced that the other 'races' are warring against the white race. At first I thought it was a joke, a forum created to poke fun at people who really are like that. I kept scrolling through all the different parts of the website, becoming more and more sickened. They hailed Hitler, saying his ideas about extinguishing certain people were genius. It was a website so full of hate that it gave me a headache.
    Yes, these people are white supremacist bigots, but that does not mean that I am, too. People should not assume that I am ignorant and narrow-minded because I have a sort of peachy-pink skin tone. And I am not saying that I am perfect and that I never discriminate or anything like that. I wish that stereotyping was not a part of daily life, but it seems to have burrowed its way into the media, into our society, like a nasty virus spreading from one person to the next. I think everyone has that little monster in the back of their mind, that tiny whisper.
    Personally, I think hatred has become a universal emotion. I do not know a single person who does not hate someone else. This hatred is easily morphed into racism, sexism, and other prejudices. These prejudices lead to misunderstandings and ignorance, which only leads to even more unnecessary hatred. On the website mentioned above I read a story in the 'Youth' section in which the kid felt he was being racially discriminated against because the 'negro' librarian told him to get off the computer so that someone else could go on. Because of his original mindset where he believed that other races are purposefully being discriminatory and making the white race into a minority, he automatically believed that the librarian was racist against him. He said later on in the story that he never went back to that library because he was so disgusted.
    But like I said, not all 'white' people are like that. It's like two sides of a hate fest: on one side is the white supremacists, and on the other side is everyone who has been discriminated against or treated badly because they have a different pigment to their skin. In the middle is all the people who really just wish everyone would stop caring so much about religion, 'race', ethnicity, nationality, and all the other things that, in the end, don't actually matter.
    So I often find myself not only angered with racist bigots who live in small worlds, but also angered by those that take the bait, that accept the challenge, that participate in the fight instead of just shaking their heads and walking away. It is why I believe that hate is universal. It is not just a one sided ordeal. There are many sides to every conflict, and everyone must take responsibility for anything they say or do. Even I must take responsibility sometimes for my mistakes because even mistakes may sometimes cause horrible things to happen.
    Maybe if everyone took responsibility for their actions, even the fundamentalist basket cases that use God to justify murdering 'witches' or the white nationalists that use their ethnicity to justify treating all other races with utmost disrespect, there would not be quite so much hate.
    Sometimes even that seems like too much of a farfetched idea.

Revolutionary

I was having a somewhat humorous conversation with my mother about the different levels of discrimination between different ethnicities and we began brainstorming exactly what it would take to draw the peoples of the world together. Perhaps some kind of terrible natural occurrence, like a massive earthquake that struck multiple parts of the world or a meteor shower. Then again, though, people would still group together and war over what resources are left, so that kind of thing might actually have the opposite effect in the end. 
    So what if all the great leaders of the world tried spreading equality in their countries and in others by speaking to large crowds and passing laws about discrimination and segregation and eliminating them? Then, of course, the media would get in the way. The media has a habit of doing just that, by going against whatever peaceful things the leaders are saying by dragging up the dirty details and making everyone look bad and shining a negative light on everything.
    After discussing various other ways, my mother and I finally decided on a science fiction way of looking at it, one that we had a lot of fun with. What if aliens came to Earth? Hostile aliens that only wanted our resources or perhaps to eat us for dinner? Then the world's populations would surely come together to fight off their common enemy. Then there would be no one who cares about the differences between dark skin and light skin, only a unanimous hatred against the green-skinned folks that have come to ravage the planet. We would call them Vertos. We would all fight against them, these aliens, until they would finally leave.
    But then, once the Vertos had left, would humanity continue to treat all peoples with equality? One for all and all for one? Or would mankind revert to the old way of thinking, in which certain peoples are less than others because of their culture or ethnicity? My mother and I reasoned that it would be a fifty-fifty thing. Some people would find absolute joy in the equality that they can share with others; some people would find their own brand of joy in tormenting others. Such is the way of life.
    It made me start thinking, though. How could we build equality without an alien attack? How could we spread tolerance and peace without having to go by the saying, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"? I began to imagine a great revolutionary, one like Gandhi, who stands up in front of a crowd and bellows, "I will respect you, but I demand your respect in return!"
    Scratch that. Rewind it. Erase, erase. 
    "I will respect you no matter what, even if you do not respect me!"
    There we go. The crowd is screaming now, bright grins on their faces as they holler his or her name. It is a chant, a prayer, calling up to the heavens to protect this man or woman who has dared to be great.
    "I will be the first to be tolerant! I will be the first to lay down my weaknesses and honesty at your feet and let you spit upon my own!"
    The crowd is wild beyond imagining. He or she is a hero, a wonderful madman who has brought hope to the eyes of little dirty children and their hardworking parents. He or she is the answer to late night wishes upon twinkling stars and fairy godmothers. He or she is the next Martin Luther King, Jr., the next Abraham Lincoln, the next Mother Teresa, and he or she has come to deliver this world from hatred and racism.
    Well, that is, if there isn't someone in the crowd with a gun ready to shoot him down. Humanity has an odd habit of extinguishing good things like that.

Final

In seventh grade I started up a blog. I kept it for a couple months before I forgot about it, another trivial piece of my online life that I did not really care about. I never posted anything particularly interesting anyways. However, when this year started I was unimaginably excited that we would be building new blogs and using them to our academic advantage. Maybe this time it would work, something would click, like those cheesy romance novels that everyone eats up. 

And for the beginning of the year, it was just like that. Before most people had twenty posts, I had fifty, and was feeling fairly celebratory about this fact. Like all new things, though, it did not stay quite so invigorating for long. I eventually grew tired of my blog and my posting slowed to a snail’s crawl. Instead of furiously typing away on my laptop every now and then, I began to simply sit and stare at the screen, lazily searching my brain for more bull to fill the gap where words were meant to be. The blog became just another assignment, like a child weaning from its exhausted mother.

Though, as I look back, I realize that my blog has had quite an impact on my life. When I started my freshman year of high school, I felt that I was an amazing writer, destined for success and fame and there was no way I could get any better because I was damn perfect. Having the blog helped change my perspective on that. I started to criticize my writing more for one thing, and it did not take long for reality to start screaming out the flaws in all of my pieces in bold, italicized letters. All of my posts became works in progress in my mind.

Of course, I do have a few favorite posts that I might rather leave just the way they are. My post titled “A Love of Music”, for example. This post marked an intense change in my writing style. I no longer wrote out exactly what I was thinking, copying and pasting the surroundings into my posts in dull ways. I do not know how the change happened, though I know that at the time I wrote it I had been severely tired and suffering from a stomach ache (I tend to write my best poetry when I am tired, so perhaps there is a connection?).

It was today that it finally clicked. I was sick from drinking coffee with an empty stomach, and in an exhausted haze I stumbled up to the piano and lifted the lid, staring down at the black and pale yellow. Before long I was mumbling to myself, squinting at the black and white blobs on old, wrinkled paper.

It has got something to it that even I have not fully comprehended. I guess I have just got to wait until the middle of the night, maybe toss in a fever, and then everything will make perfect sense.

And as the school year comes to a close, as all things do, I find an interest sparked once again in my blog. My problem now is not a lack of interest, it is a lack of knowing what to say. There is a wall in the way, some kind of syrup on my fingers that keeps me from typing like I know I can. It is the dreaded writer’s block. I do not know if it is because I am more awake and alert (which may or may not be a hindrances) or if it is because the year is almost over and my brain is starting to relapse into summer wonders.

The good thing about the end of the school year is that I’m tired more often. Whether I’m just burnt out after a long and vigorous year, or if I’m just not getting enough sleep in general, I wake up each day groaning and exhausted. As I said earlier, I tend to write best when I’m on the brink of passing out (especially when it comes to poetry). When I’m wide awake, there isn’t much I can do without it coming out sounding forced and weak.

At least I have something to be proud of. Unlike the ‘perfection’ that I used to scrawl out on binder paper during lunch, my works have definitely improved. My poetry, for example, is no longer the depressed ramblings of a preteen who thinks she knows all there is to know and then some. My poetry no longer focuses on deep, dark emotions and coldness and sadness and things like that.I have found that my poetry now reflects on my interesting topics,, which is something I have also found pride in. Early on in the year I posted one about a soldier, which, now that I look back at it, is terrible compared to some of my newer poems, like this one (yes, it is an older post, but the poem is actually from a time much more recent). I am not saying that my poetry is the best, though. I am constantly reading others’ poems and mentally attacking myself for not being ‘good enough’.

My vocabulary has also improved greatly. Instead of saying something like, “She had really tan skin, which showed that she spent a lot of time in the sun,” I would say something like “Her skin looked like light syrup, gleaming in the sunlight she spent so many tiring hours working in.” Or, if it was a poem, I would say something like, “The sun beats down on California kissed skin.” Though I often criticize my own works (“Oh, jeez, that conversation is completely dull” or “This poem is totally unoriginal”), I do acknowledge that, when I truly want to, I can use fairly interesting words.

The life of my blog has been full of ups and downs, like one of those roller coasters that goes in loops and makes half the passengers throw up.

Growing Up

For some reason, people seem to think that while a person grows, their taste in literature, music, or film has to 'mature'. Instead of reading shorter books with larger letters, people are expected to read thick books with thin pages and tiny words that are barely visible with a magnifying glass. Not that I'm saying those types of books are a bad thing; I often find myself getting lost in those books, like I myself was the protagonist.

It is, however, against all reason that I should be expected to simply give up childhood classics. I'm not talking about things like Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland, though, which are classics indeed. I'm talking about my own personal favorites that more likely than not shaped me to be who I am today. Of course there's always Harry Potter, but everyone reads that. That's everyone's childhood sweetheart when it comes to books. 

Second grade was possibly my favorite year of school ever. Period. Done. I've never had a year like it. I grew closer to my friends, developed friendships, and had the most amazing teacher ever: Mrs. Wysocki. During the later part of the year, Mrs. Wysocki told my class that she would be reading us one of her favorites; evidently it was a book called There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom by Louis Sachar. It tells the story of a distraught fifth grader (who is much older than the rest of his classmates) and a new school counselor named Carla who helps him break out of the negative attitude he has towards himself, as well his nasty habit of taking his frustration out on his classmates. 

Since I had only been seven at the time, the book actually opened my eyes to the world of bullying and the things that might be going on inside the heads of those who are, themselves, bullies. 

Another book that played an important role in my childhood is the book Loser by Jerry Spinelli. It tells about Donald Zinkoff's rise through elementary school. It's another one of those books that's short with thick pages and size eighteen font, but it also deals somewhat with the psychology behind the actions that his classmates commit. Zinkoff, however, does not let it get him down. In a school race, he fails his team and suffers greatly with harsh words and angry teammates. The pain and hurt doesn't last long when his father comes to the rescue:

"Even in bed that night Zinkoff can still feel the shake and shimmy of the old rattletrap [the family car], and coming through loud and clear is a message that was never said. He knows that he could lose a thousand races and his father will never give up on him. He knows that if he ever springs a leak or throws a gasket, his dad will be there with duct tape and chewing gum to patch him up, that no matter how much he rattles and knocks, he'll always be a honeybug to his dad, never a clunker," (page 108).

Explanation for the last bit: His dad is constantly getting new used cars since the last ones are always breaking down, and while his dad is always calling them his honeybugs, Zinkoff and his mother call them Clunkers. 

So, as you can see, these books clearly aren't meant to be read once and then stuffed aside for new, Harvard approved books. I've been rereading a lot of my own childhood classics lately. When was the last time you took a peek between the pages of an old favorite?

"Sweet Split"

A poem I just wrote that I'm rather fond of. Might be because it's the first one in a while that wasn't directly influenced by myself or someone I know. I think it's amazing how much my poetic style has changed in the last two years. :D So anyways. This one's about drugs, even though it totally didn't start out that way when I was forming it in my head. 


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The sun beats down on California kissed skin
As she trades more Benjamins for another trip
Another vacation
Another escape from the world.

Sexy and sweet this girl of the street
Dancing to an endless tune so fine
So mellow
So snap your fingers and fall to the floor.

She says that walls are too confining
That she'd rather die than go home
Go anywhere
Go to any place where she can't spread her wings.

Needles in the crook and pinching heaven
Is she calling your name or mine?
Or is she praying?
Or is she crying out that God is a liar?

Blog Traffic

What is this? Porn sites are referrencing my blog? Not just any porn sites, sites for bisexual men. As well as a Russian website that looks like a place for happy families. You can see the Russian place here. Can anyone else read any of that?

Anyways, I'm not just getting traffic from the US. I'm getting traffic from Russia (of course), Canada, Germany, Malaysia, Australia, the UK, India, Denmark, and the Netherlands. Why the Netherlands? I mean, I don't have a problem with that, it's just so random!

And why the porn sites?

Edit: Apparently in the last month I've also been refferenced to by this. Why?

Comments

Christy-This sounds like a really great book. I might even check it out from the library myself. I like how you focus on the chemistry between the characters and the strength of believing.


David-So I thought this was an okay review. Not the best, since you haven't actually finished it, but it's okay. Also, he's probably depressed because he's been kicked out of school so much and his brother is dead and apparently no one really listens to him. Just sayin'. XD


Stan-You don't have an up-to-date review. D: Whyyy!