I. Lifestyle

From this week's assignment, I learned about the street life in Harlem. Before reading this book, I did not know how the life was for people who smuggle drugs and do other illegal things. In many ways, this book provided glimpse of life that I personally never experienced before. In a way, the fact that Malcolm lived a life so... low in the class surprised me that people like him could be one of the most influential people if they wanted to. Maybe because he went through all these, he knew that African Americans must stand up and fight against the devils, or the white men.

http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SNJ0252-0-393&artno=0000105349&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=&title=Cocaine%27s%20Effects%20on%20Users%20Linger%20for%20at%20Least%20a%20Month%2C%20Study%20Says&res=Y&ren=N&gov=N&lnk=N&ic=N

The article proved how hard it is to break addict, especially heavy drug users, because of the affects the drugs do to people. However, the way Malcolm was able to become an influential leader of the African American society is amazing. It must have been very hard for him to stop it immediately. Although I never have tried any drugs whatsoever, I am addicted to computer. Every time I have free time (and even when I don't), I cannot help myself from reading novels posted on Internet. Also, I have recently got addicted to tetris from facebook. I know I should stop going on to computer so often but it is so hard to break the habit. These things are affecting time management, which leads to dropping of grades. I sure hope that I can break the addict soon as how Malcolm did.

MALCOLM X

First of all, I would like to say that I actually like this book unlike other books that the school required us to read. It described the lives of how African Americans lived back then. It contained little details, such as description of ghetto, conk, zoot suit, and so on. It also showed the class system within African Americans themselves, which shocked me. I never thought before that these people would ignore their own race for not being able to work for whites. Since they all went through the hard time together, I thought they would be more united. Also, if I were an African American of that time, I would rebel to work for whites, who enslaved my ancestors. I would feel insulted, ashamed, and disgraceful that I still had to work for whites even after slavery was abolished. However, the book explained how blacks who worked for whites were considered to be in higher class, which really saddened me. 

The first quote that I felt touched when the author wrote, "My father had always been very strongly against credit. 'Credit is the first way into debt and back into slavery,' he had always said" (Haley 12). From this quote, I could almost feel African Americans' fear to go back to being slaves again.

Then, later, there was a quote that stated, "Japanese planes had just bombed a place called Pearl Harbor" (Haley 72). By this time, I was wondering the time period that this book was taking place. Then that quote was so unexpected that I was astonished after I read it. It took me a few seconds to absorb what it had said. It also awestruck me how careless he sounded. The quote almost sounded as though he was talking about another country that was irrelevant to him. If I were him, I would have flipped out if I heard that my country was just attacked by an enemy. However, his reaction was that he was relieved that people did not notice his tardy because of the attack. This just made me think that maybe African Americans, generally speaking, during this time period  did not love, respect, and honor the nation because of events that they went through. 

Video

From the video, I got a chance to take a glimpse at how African Americans were viewed by whites. This was a new experience because I learned about slaves only through historical facts that I learned at school. I never really got a chance to see how whites defended slavery in South until this morning. The most shocking thing that I struck me was how African Americans were portrayed in cartoons. First of all, every slave looked happy. This was ridiculous because who would be laughing and filled with joy when they were forced to work for the master without earning any profits? Second, everyone had big mouth that covered half of his or her face. Yes–their mouths may be thicker than whites, but they over-exaggerated the size in those cartoons. Third, I didn't like how they were stereotypical by comparing fragile, skinny, and beautiful white mistresses with fat, strong, and ugly African American women with big mouth. Overall, it was shocking to see how stereotypical these people were and the way they tried to persuade others that slavery was beneficial to everyone, including slaves.

Catcher in the Rye III

I was writing this post when I accidently shut the window down. So I have to retype this post.

I was a little confused on the part where Mr. A was petting Holden's head. Was Mr. A gay? Or was Holden just taking it too seriously? Mr. A might be petting Holden's head because he felt bad that Holden was riding a horrible, endless fall. Maybe Mr. A did have interests in young guys. Maybe Mr. A thought Holden was his wife because he was too drukn. I do not know. But that event twisted the story even more with another negative fact that either Holden is talking stuff offensively because of his depressing personality or Holden's favorite teacher has intersts in young boys. Being gay is fine, but having interests in boys half his age is wrong. The conclusion that I drew was that the author just confused me with pointless information.

Catcher in the Rye II

I finished reading the book about a week ago. It ended just as it had started. I guess it is a happy ending since Holden did not run away to west. Though it was not the best book that I've ever read in my life, it was pretty good for a book that we read in school. Anyway, this book was unique in someway because it did not follow the basic guideline of novels, such as beginning, climax, exposition, blah blah blah.

Catcher in the Rye I

Chapters 1~23

Before I began to read this book, I had a very high expectation. However, as I turned page after page, I couldn't stop myself from being disappointed. I'm a very happy person. I always listen to songs with fast beats and watch comedies during the weekends. I like laughing out loud. The main character in this book, though, depressed me and got me a little irritated. I was hoping to read this book so that I could get rid of at least some, if not all, of my stress from school. But Holden kept on repeating how something or someone had depressed him and that he was not in the mood. In addition, he repetitiously called every guy he knew as 'phonies' when I thought he was the most pathetic phony out of all the other ones. As I was reading about his moods, I was thinking, 'does he have a mental problem where he is always depressed?' Also, I didn't like the way he always 'pokes' on every single girl he saw for enjoyment.

There is something that I am quite confused with, too. Whenever he describes his sister, Phoebe, he doesn't seem like he's her brother. He said how lovely and pretty she was as if he actually loved her in a non-family way. Maybe I was being too sensitive because he bothered and depressed me with his negativeness.

Overall, I liked the fact that the book was fast reading unlike the last book I read, which was the Founding Brothers that I was required to read for AP US. On the other hand, I disliked Holden's depressingly negative views of the world and the way he thought he was too cool.