TOW #23 "Multicultural President Should Be Celebrated, Not Investigated"

Reading goal: read for the purpose
Writing goal: use effective organization

   Since the presidential campaign of 2008, some people have challenged the fact that President Obama was born in the US. A poll from 2011 showed that one in four Americans believed that he was born outside the United States. So that year President Obama addressed these rumors by releasing his full birth certificate, proving that he was in fact born in Hawaii. Denizen, an online magazine for Third Culture Kids, or kids who spend a significant number of their developmental years outside their parents culture, presented their views on the issue in the article "Multicultural President Should Be Celebrated, Not Investigated". Denizen writers Steph Yiu and Suzanne Leung argue that whether Obama was or wasn't born in the US should not be a big deal and that a president who does have experience of other cultures and countries should be valued as one who  is better equipped to lead a country in our increasingly globalized world.
   A lot of this post's argument rests on the assumption that the audience shares most of the writers' points of view. Yiu and Leung write that this controversy "reveals a disappointingly narrow-minded way of thinking and, in our opinion, veiled racism. To us, one’s birthplace is really just that — a geographic location, and one of many that one will live in throughout life. True allegiance and love for a country is so much more sophisticated and complicated than a birth certificate." Denizen magazine is created and consumed by a community of people who have spent parts of their lives living in multiple different countries. They presumably feel the same way about a birthplace and understand that you can love a country (or multiple countries) no matter where you are born.
   Obama is a Third Culture Kid himself, as he lived for some time in Indonesia. Denizen argues that even if Obama hadn't been born in the US, it should not be such a point of controversy. Instead of challenged, international experience like Obama had in Indonesia should be valued in a leader. As Yiu and Leung state "We do not live in an one-culture world, and neither should our political leaders who must make decisions that have a global impact." This argument again is held up by their assumption that those reading this post have had their own experiences in other countries and understand that it is important in our globalized world to have contact with and understand other cultures.
   Finally, Yiu and Leung support their argument that Obama's birth certificate should not matter by asserting that the challenges to his birth place are not questions of legitimacy for the presidency but are rather attacks born of racism and xenophobism. They cite how Obama's birth was questioned while the fact that John McCain was born in Panama never came up in the 2008 election, and how John Kerry is not examined for spending part of his childhood in France while Obama is for his time in Indonesia. Through this they imply that Obama's US birthplace is questioned because he is African American, and that this is a disturbing and petty prejudice.
   Were Yiu and Leung writing to a wider audience, they would need to more strongly support their argument. However, as their post is targeted at a community of Third Culture Kids who relate to the experiences of both the authors and President Obama and to the argument that is expressed, their simple denouncement and call for a greater acceptance of multiculturalism is enough to be effective.

Here is the post from Denizen magazine: http://www.denizenmag.com/2011/05/multicultural-president-should-be-celebrated-not-investigated/

TOW #22 Visual

   Since the horrible shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary a year and a half ago, gun control has been a high profile issue in American society. Shortly after the tragedy, the organization behind this ad campaign, Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense in America, was formed. I saw this ad a while ago and found it striking. The image combines effective appeals to pathos and logos in order to argue for stricter gun control.
   The main device used by this ad is juxtaposition. The two items the children are holding, a Kinder Surprise egg and an assault rifle, are not items that would usually be seen together. The Kinder Surprise egg, next to the large, black, frightening gun, looks completely harmless. And yet the audience knows that the chocolate eggs are banned in the US for child safety while guns are not.
   The ad is made more powerful by the fact that the gun is held by a child. The disturbing idea of a little girl holding an assault rifle appeals to the emotions of the audience, attempting to convince them of the urgency of the need for gun control. The serious faces of the children and the familiar but dull, shadowy schoolroom surroundings add to this disturbing atmosphere. Also, the stark text above the children's heads contributes to this sense of urgency with its white and red font and all capitals.
   This text points out the irony of the situation by inviting the audience to pick which one of the items has been banned for the safety of children. The creator of the ad can assume that most people reading the ad will know that Kinder eggs are illegal in the US because of their potentiality to be choking hazards for small children. The audience is then forced to look at the much, much more dangerous item and recognize that it is legally sold despite the much more potent danger it poses for children in American society. Making an effective appeal to logos, the ad argues that if we outlaw chocolate eggs because the small plastic toy inside could be a choking hazard, then it certainly follows that we should outlaw assault rifles that can and have killed not just children, but people of all ages.
   As a supporter of gun control and also as someone who used to eat Kinder eggs as a kid, I found this ad compelling because it laid out clearly ideas that I already agreed with. However, the logic of this argument cannot be argued even by someone who holds the opposite biases of me, which is what makes it so effective. The idea that chocolate eggs are outlawed for child safety while lethal weapons are not is absurd and cannot be disputed. This ad combines juxtaposition and an ironic situation with visual and verbal elements of urgency and danger to not just call for, but, as it says in the bottom right hand corner, demand action for gun control.

TOW #21 "The Individual and the Pattern of Culture"

   In her essay "The Individual and the Pattern of Culture", anthropologist Ruth Benedict begins by stating that society is not antagonistic to the individual. This idea is a misconception, she argues, because society is built by the contributions of its individuals, and the individuals rely on the society to build their lives. Then Benedict goes on to explore the place of the individual within a society, and how individuals who embody traits not valued by the society function within that society. "The Individual and the Pattern of Culture" is a chapter from a larger work by Benedict, Patterns of Culture, written in 1934. Throughout the chapter, Benedict compares the traditions and ways of life of multiple Native American tribes to each other as well as to contemporary American culture to explore how their is not one set of  true normal standards for a society. Ultimately, she concludes that recognition of this "social relativity" as she calls it will help us to better understand and tolerate other cultures.
   Benedict describes how individuals who behave in a way that may be seen as unacceptable in one culture may have characteristics that are prized in another. For example, she compares the way people in two different Native American tribes are expected to deal with frustration and despair: "Those who, in a situation in which they are frustrated, naturally seek ways of putting the occasion out of sight as expeditiously as possible are well served in Pueblo culture... On the other hand, those who react to frustration as to an insult and whose first thought is to get even are amply provided for on the Northwest Coast," (Benedict par. 9-10). In the two cultures, it is considered acceptable to react in two different ways, and the opposite behaviors would be unexpected and even shocking to the opposite tribes. Thus Benedict demonstrates how each culture believes their standards for behavior to be universal, and yet there is no single set of "correct" standards.
   Benedict also shows how individuals who do not have the characteristics valued by their own culture are not supported by their society. Often these individuals in the end are force to conform. This situation can occur, Benedict notes, as a society changes over time. She cites the example of literary figure Don Quixote, who subscribed to the ideas of chivalry after that era had passed, and this behavior discredited him in the eyes of his society.
   Sometimes individuals may be better suited for a culture that is not their own. However, because of distance or the passage of time, individuals can not necessarily relocate to different societies until they find a culture that fits them. Benedict argues that because customs differ from community to community and even individuals within a community differ, we need to accept that there is not one single set of standards that are normal. This recognition will help tolerance inside and between cultures, and will help foster better coexistence.

TOW #20 Visual

Reading goal: understand what makes the advertisement effective
Writing goal: effectively analyze examples to show how they contribute to the overall purpose

     This year while watching the winter Olympics, I discovered this advertisement for General Electric, and I think it's probably one of the most effective ads I've seen in a long time. The advertisement is called "Childlike Imagination - What My Mom Does at GE". It features a little girl describing in childlike terms what her mother makes at work, exploring some of what GE does through the eyes of a child. It is also unique as an advertisement because its purpose is slightly different than most; this ad is not trying to get the audience to buy something. Rather, the advertisement serves to promote General Electric to the wider public audience to generate interest in and support for what they are doing. It does this by explaining and emphasizing the imagination of what GE creates.

      The main strategy behind this advertisement is its child's perspective, as the whole premise of the ad is the comparison of "childlike imagination" to the imagination of GE. The voice of the little girl who narrates the video conveys a sense of innocence and wonder, associating those qualities with the company in the minds of the audience. The whimsical images which are simultaneously described by the little girl and pictured on the screen contribute to this childlike view of the technology GE develops. For example, the images of planes with wings like birds and trees that walk around and wave to trains are fantastical and appealing, yet they represent the real technology that GE actually develops. GE's use of the child's view is effective because the audience understands that what the child describes is not literally true but is an imaginative interpretation. Trees are not literally friends with trains and actual hospitals do not fit in your hand as described in the ad, but using this perspective to show how they develop environmentally friendly trains and hand-held medical resource devices is more imaginative and appeals to the audience. 

     Another strategy the ad uses is its environmental message. GE emphasizes their environmentally-friendly work by specifically highlighting their environmentally-friendly trains, but also implicitly by including naturalistic themed images. For example, the scenes of the moon powering the underwater turbines, the planes flying on birds wings through the clouds, and the little girl sitting among the waving trees associate GE technology with nature and help them appear environmentally friendly. This helps boost GE's ethos as a company by showing that it cares about the environment, which would help promote the company to a wider audience. 

     This ad also personally appealed to me and effectively appeals to an audience of mothers and daughters by having a little girl talk about her mom. The ad reinforces the idea that women are just as valuable in the areas of engineering and technology as men, and it helps to promote the company by showing that GE embraces that. 

     Overall the advertisement is artfully crafted and visually appealing. It effectively promotes General Electric to a wider public audience by emphasizing the childlike imagination of the company. 

TOW #19 IRB Post

Reading goal: read for the overall purpose
Writing goal: effectively analyze examples to show how they help the author achieve his/her purpose

     Race and family heritage play a substantial role in the formation of self-identity as it affects how we see ourselves as well as how others see us. In his memoir Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama examines how this issue developed in his own life. The first four chapters of this book, part of the first section titled Origins, detail the beginning of Barack Obama's life and a little of his family history. He first goes back to his Kansan grandparents experiences and the life of his mother's family. Then he describes how his mother, whose family had finally settled down in Hawaii, fell in love with and married a Kenyan student, his father. Throughout the course of Barack Obama's childhood his father left, his mother remarried and moved them to Indonesia, and eventually he came back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents and go to school. In these chapters, Obama develops portraits of family members, uses a lot of personal anecdotes (as it is a memoir), and compares his experience as a young black man with his friend's to explore the family and personal history that shaped his struggles with his own racial identity.
     Obama talks a lot about his grandparents who helped to raise him. He gives a lot of background on his grandfather to show the kind of person that raised him. For example, he writes "...my grandfather, always searching for that new start, always running away from the familiar... he had come to consider himself as something of a freethinker - bohemian, even," (Obama 1). The description presents Obama's grandfather as someone always searching for the new, with typical American ideals such as individualism and freedom, but also someone who thought his own thoughts and lived his own way. This portrait helps Obama to show that he grew up in an open minded family that accepted people despite racial differences in ways others at the time didn't, but at the same time was raised by people who had a different perceived status in the contemporary American society because of the color of their skin.
     As this is a memoir, Obama mostly uses anecdotes to portray his ideas. Some describe his experiences at the almost all-white private school he attended in Hawaii, including his first day when his teacher asked him about his Kenyan father. Obama describes how the other kids asked him questions and how he felt isolated at school. These anecdotes showed how as a young kid Obama was singled out as different as a black boy in a world of white children.
     And yet, Obama also felt out of place among his black friends. He writes "Sometimes I would find myself talking to Ray about white folks this, or white folks that, and I would suddenly remember my mother's smile, and the words that I spoke would seem awkward and false," (Obama 81) and later "I was different, after all, potentially suspect; I had no idea who my own self was," (Obama 82). Obama contrasts his experiences with his friend Ray's, who seems to have solidified his identity as a black man in a white man's world. Obama, as the son of a white mother and grandson of white grandparents, did not have the same security of identity as his friend, which complicated his issues.
    Obama has so far effectively weaved all these elements together to create a compelling and engaging memoir which helps the reader to think about the way race affects our personal and public identities.

TOW #18 "Can a Woman Be a 'Great American Novelist'?"

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2010/09/can_a_woman_be_a_great_american_novelist.html

This is an article from the online magazine Slate by Meghan O'Rourke. Published in 2010, the article explores an issue that has been and continues to be a troubling one in our society: the literary gender gap. The article begins by referencing a cultural debate that had sprung up at the time, centering around the novel Freedom, which had been recently released at the time, and its author Johnathan Franzen. O'Rourke then poses the question of whether the book would have received the same praise and attention had it been written by a female, and arguably, she writes, it would not. The article then goes on to describe how gender bias affects who we tend to attribute merit to. O'Rourke effectively uses the contemporary example to start the discussion, and then incorporates other examples of female and male authors and how their work is received. She also includes several anecdotes to show how gender bias is present in how women are viewed and treated in the literary world. For example, O'Rourke writes "to sit with female writers... is, inevitably, to trade war stories...There's the author who sent out a proposal about John Lennon and learned that editors worried readers might not believe a woman could write with authority about a musician" (O'Rourke 2). These personal and all-to-real stories demonstrate how ensconced bias is in our society and how it influences the way editors and publishers, the media, and the general public view female writers. O'Rourke also connects the issues she explores in this article to how the implementation of blind auditions improved the representation of female musicians in orchestras. This was something I found very interesting, as it was an issue described in Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink which I read as my IRB last semester (http://rebekahapengblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/tow-14-irb-post.html). As O'Rourke shows, we tend to think highly of a man's ability quicker than we are of a woman's, whether it be in writing or in music or some other area entirely, and I already know from Gladwell that it is because our unconscious thinking can easily be influenced by prejudice and stereotypes. Ultimately, O'Rourke points out how gender bias is active in the way we view and treat books and their authors. Though not trumpeting a call to action, O'Rourke does imply that we should be aware of this and work on counteracting it.

IRB Intro Post: Third Marking Period

For the third marking period I have chosen to read Barack Obama's memoir Dreams From my Father  for my IRB. Though Obama is obviously well known as the current president of the US, he wrote this book before he was even elected senator. According to the book flap, Dreams From my Father is "the story of Obama's struggle to understand the forces that shaped him as the son of a black African father and a white American mother." My parents happen to own this book and I have been meaning to read it, so I thought I would take the opportunity to do so with the new marking period. President Obama is arguably the single most important person in American society today and I am interested to read the story of his personal journey before he rose onto the US political scene. Dreams From my Father has been highly praised and I am looking forward to reading it.