Author: christian champagne

The Black Aesthetic

Blackness is an aesthetic that is mainly attached to black people, and presents itself in fashion, language, and music to embrace and appreciate culture and identity. It has called to reflect on our past as a mark of legacy and inspired achievements with pride.

Black culture has a profound impact on music and it has given birth to genres like Jazz, Rap, R&B, and Afro beats. One of the main forms of music was rap in the 7o’s in African American communities In NYC, where block parties and DJs started isolating and extended the instrumental breaks in funk and soul music. through this many underground/mainstream artists like grandmaster flash, run dmc, and nwa had been very popular and mainly was a voice to societal problems, racism, love, self worth and many more. It became foundational for a breakthrough and revolutionary form of music and inspired many. Lots of other artists in different genres, such as Lil Baby, Beyonce, Burna Boy, and Eryka Badu paved a way for music and is heard by millions of people worldwide and leaves a legacy for black artists in the music industry.

Black people have many unique forms of expression in language and dialect spoken over the years and has emerged as a distinct and linguistic style. African American Vernacular English is a dialect popularized within the black community in the southern United States. It has originated from languages such as Creole and Gullah. Having its own features of grammar and vocabulary, AAVE was initiated by Black Americans; it opens up a diversity in slang where it doesn’t normalize a “white” or “American” english.

The Black community has a consistent and outstanding influence on fashion industries, with trends attributed by Black designers. The Harlem renaissance was a start and a cultural revival for black people and popular fashion wear like flappers and zoot suits were notable. There is more recognition in the 1960s where artists like Zelda Wynn Valdez created the playboy bunny and the black panther party wore all leather outfits and dashikis and afros. Ebony magazines played a role in normalizing black luxury. These gave a solid foundation of expression and confidence to embrace in their natural self and having freedom. It also paved a way for popular designers in the 21st century, like Virgil Abloh, Kanye West, Dapper Dan and Rihanna to create clothes and brands that are being worn all over the world and falls into streetwear, vintage, minimalism, and classy style.

There have been a wave of immigrants splurging across New York City. Many people come from Venezuela, Haiti, Mexico and many others in efforts of looking for a better life, safety, education, and healthcare. However, new immigrants are making it complicated.

They were many immigrants lined up in enrollment centers, hotels, and terminals with an estimate of 300 people, doubling the homeless population. We have seen many homeless sleeping on sidewalks and NYC transit and over 100,000 people now live in shelters. Eric Adams has asked and advocated for funds and work authorization for migrants to get on their feet, but no action has been done at the moment. Because of the lack of resources, Mayor Eric Adams has called a humanitarian crisis. There has been a call for pushback to give shelter to homeless people because the only thing that’s happening is an endless increase in population.

The city is doing as much as they can to support the homeless and new migrants. Lots of people were provided food and water so they can be some sort of sufficient. Also, many are being removed from places of shelter. In queens, many have been kicked out of the flushing meadows hotel without short notice. This has caused a lot of people to feel anxious and insecure about finding a place to live. It creates a lot of tension and brings violence, concerns of mental health and anger as a result, making it very unsafe for others. Joe Biden wants to give medical services and housing to new migrants. The federal government is working on defeating inflation and creating affordable and permanent housing programs. As this problem is still occurring in the US, The city is still in search for solutions to fight home insecurity and create an environment that’s stable, safe and reasonable for everyone.

My initial reaction to Anne Lamott’s “shitty first drafts” is that she is very mindful towards the struggle of writing. writing the first draft is like exploring your thoughts on a piece of paper. it doesn’t have to be as perfect, but she uses that draft to find good details in her writing and use it for the next. I love how she even wrote as a food critic which is really different. she takes all the judgment from others to write better and trust the process; silencing voices in her head so she ends up having a better paper on her third draft, keeping everything stable and the mind healthy, which is something writers can relate to. In George’s essay “rethinking the shitty first draft”, he appears as arrogant. he doesn’t appear to agree with Anne and her style of writing because it will end up bad without immediate fixing. he says that her method takes too much time and feels like he is forcing himself to do the same thing over and over. he claims that revising your work is better so you can have only one perfect draft. In my opinion, I believe with Anne lamott and her essay. I take away that we all aren’t gonna be perfect, especially on the first try. at first you don’t succeed and everyone has seen it before but there is always room to know more from it and try again. I don’t write essays perfectly on one try. For me, writing is a skill that takes time and work. she authenticates the imperfectness in her essays, especially coming from critics that always points out flaws, no matter if you’re the best writer on earth. There will always be room to improve.

Introduction

Hello Everyone! My name is Christian Joel Champagne. my nicknames are Chris, Cj, and champagne. I am a first generation Haitian American college student at Baruch and I am majoring in finance. in the future I want to be a financial advisor and hopefully land a good financial analyst job at google. I grew up in Brooklyn,Ny. I am a catholic and grew up in a religious and spiritual household. I used to work as a tutor for Brooklyn united and I was a camp counselor at genius lab in bay ridge. I also was an athletic director/ manager for uncommon schools during my senior year of high school. I ran track and field and played football. my main interests outside of school is weightlifting occasionally, listening to the Bible, self care, and working on my relationship with god. my favorite colors are black, brown, pink, green, white, yellow, red, blue and beige. my goals in life is to build generational wealth, raise healthy children, put god first always and follow his will, and live a good successful life. I hope to know more about all of you soon! Can’t wait for the good things that are to come!

Observation on “join the conversation”

An observation about “Join The Conversation” is the fact that we are not focused on one genre; there are a diverse number of articles that are interesting to read and analyze for this semester. Also they provide more information from other articles and excerpts which is less biased and fake because it backs up what is to be proven.
(Ex: “with selected chapters from”).

“Learning to read” excerpt

The excerpt “preparing to read” from the autobiography of Malcom x really changes perspective on the process of learning. Malcolm x stands out because he didn’t grow up with a traditional learning curriculum. For Malcolm, learned through letters and it gave him “a kind of education”. he always expressed how he felt on his concerns but never knew how to do the same on a piece of paper. he didn’t have a lot of education in school but rather in prisons. he looked up to people like Bimbi who had always had authority and took charge. however, he barely reads books unless he had motivation and skipped challenging words that were hard to read. to face this problem, he began his Homemade Education by writing words from the dictionary and made it a habit. he did this to improve his vocabulary and writing given the fact that he couldn’t write in a straight line. he found passion in his writing later on. with effort and using his resources for writing skills, it made him more better at knowing and remembering words. when he left prison, he never wanted to stop learning and reading. in fact, the prison that he was in was his way of being an encyclopedia because of the way he devoured literature. given the nuance of racial discrimination and many problems faced due to the color of his skin, he hid his ability to read from the guards in prison. he had written and disagreed on the white history that was written in schools and learned the truth about slavery. he also had attention on religion and his beliefs. as he grew into his reading journey, the best thing to take away is that not only did he learn from a different environment, but there is never gonna be an obstacle on getting a good education. also, there are many ways that others can learn and obtain knowledge that is effective and unique in their own way and wakes one up to be a more better, wiser, and educated person than they were before.