woojin project reflection

The essay’s charming title ‘Political Correctness’ now Comedians’ Second Favorite Set of Two Words Next to ‘F***ing Sh*t’ does an excellent job at being completely unrelated to the content of the rest of the paper. Besides that, it discusses how historical and societal contexts are what make certain things funny, and how today, racist jokes and stereotypes should be a thing of the past. It’s clear that they aren’t and still exist with us in spirit, and comedy is in a weird war with itself where some seek to stay conservative and say whatever they want to say, whereas others want to be funny without offending people. Altogether, it seems to be having a difficult time moving in the direction of the film industry, which is beginning to distribute more roles to women and minorities.

not my meme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQUlvnYqKoo

my meem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfLTVtHUbIA

manifesto woojin kim

George Saunders issues a sort of ironic and self-aware mission statement for People Reluctant to Kill for an Abstraction in Manifesto. In it, he humorously compares the actions of typical, everyday people to those of criminals, terrorists, sociopaths, and murderers, eventually drawing the point that his organization is “many,” that it is “worldwide.” The main argument of the entire piece is that we are far from killing in the name of a baseless notion. The daily actions of an average Joe going to work on a crowded freeway and a lady in Tokyo are mundane and will continue to be mundane. Nobody doesn’t have a crazy thought in their head, but thankfully most of us living in 2018 don’t do the first thing that comes to mind. Saunders may have wanted to show readers, through a bit of humor, how easy it is to be normal by creating the image of an organization that goes out of its way to do literally nothing.

day 17 woojin kim

In the introduction to Researching and Making Claims, Seth Graves makes a point about how research is a rather rudimentary thing and goes further to say that it “provides credibility for our claims.” And if there’s anything needed more in an age in which information is so easily put out and accessed, it’s credibility. Graves cites an interesting study that revealed that the youth of today in high school and university are not super skeptical of the things they read about online, despite certain clues being present or simply hiding in plain sight. One sentence, in particular, struck me in the introduction to the research process, which reads “Many students were unable to discern whether something posted on social media was simply popular or whether it actually was true.” While it’s a fact that more young people consume social media, practically anyone can fall for baiting articles or advertisements. Also, when considering the politicization of social media platforms, and the political bandwagoning and grandstanding of famous celebrities and pop stars, we see it’s easier than ever to persuade masses of people into believing in potentially unsubstantiated or even false claims.

The Research Process proposes a new way to look at research in order to make the task seem less daunting. Rather than looking at research as the grueling task of hunting and gathering facts, one might find it more productive and interesting to see it as an exploration. The authors of the text paint an image of a child constantly questioning things, demonstrating how when one asks a simple question “why?” repeatedly, he gets closer to the bottom of things. I agree with the writers that when stripped down, research really “refers to a process of wanting to know more.” Admittedly it’s difficult to want to know more about something you don’t really care about, and that requirement often takes the fun out of doing research; such is probably the reason why so many students dread the research paper.

revision woojin kim

On page 117 of “Revising Attitudes” Brock Dethier writes “…For most of us, revision is the only road to success.” What does he mean by this? What’s your response?

Dethier acknowledges some writers’ sentiments that ‘revision is a sign of failure, and criticism a personal affront’, and comes from a place of understanding when he says that most writers have to revise. This implies that the minority of writers take revision and criticism at face value rather than accepting them and revising their work, which they must have seen as perfect and close to their visions. But I believe too that revision is the only road to success if success means a satisfactory piece of writing. Some writers seem to be stuck in an endless loop where nothing they ever create is ever good enough for them, thus not fit for others’ reading either. However, revising and being objective about one’s own work comes ever closer to the ideal product.

2. On page 124 Deither uses the metaphor of working on a car to think about revision. What’s a metaphor you have for revision? What can you compare it to?

Revising drafts is like brushing teeth. Some people like brushing their teeth, others don’t. Some are indifferent and do it out of habit. At the end of the day, everyone brushes their teeth because they want to maintain standard oral hygiene. In the same way, revising may not be for everyone, and everyone has a different attitude, approach, and reason for doing it. Revising will objectively make for a better piece of writing.

3. Respond to one of the following from Donald Murray’s “Revising Your Own Manuscripts”:

a. “Good writing is essentially rewriting.” (pg 101)

From personal experience, nothing I write ever stays the same. Whether it’s just one sentence or a thesis or even entire paragraphs, sometimes for the sake of a good, cohesive piece of writing, I find the need to just let go of some things. For example, we all have that one sentence we think we absolutely need to include in an essay; but no matter how we look at it, the sentence just doesn’t fit into the context at all. You could change the sentence but then you run the risk of losing its intended impact. Perhaps you could revise the sentence, and try to set it up better beforehand instead of shoehorning it in as is.

anzaldua and naylor woojin kim

The first reading entitled How to Tame a Wild Tongue by Gloria Anzaldua goes into detail about moments and realizations that led her to grow defiant against cultural assimilation in not only the US but in Latino, Mexican, and other Spanish speaking communities in the places she lived and grew up in. Anzaldua seemed to grow more and more passionate about her Chicana heritage as she continued to face censorship from her own people, and had a chip on her shoulder about being shut down at times for speaking the way she naturally did. As the reading progresses Anzaldua sheds light on the discrimination she and other Chicana come across — sometimes among themselves — and how it only strengthens her deep bond to the language. She cites an ongoing struggle for identity, yet hopes that one day such struggle will cease, and hammers the point home by saying that the mestizos and mestizas will remain.

The second and final text, The Meanings of a Word, explores the experiences of a young Gloria Naylor with the word “nigger”. We can infer from the title alone that a word (which we learn refers to the n-word) can have many different meanings, and it certainly did to Naylor. Around the house it was used for a completely different effect, and had positive connotations to intelligence, pride, and solidarity. Despite this, there were times when it was used in a worse way, and the writer was not unfamiliar to the word’s use in such a way; however, it wasn’t until a fellow classmate used it to humiliate her when Naylor discovered that she was in the dark.

Response:

I am reminded of the popular expression “ignorance is bliss”. Within their own circles and communities, both Anzaldua and Naylor (both Gloria, what do you know!) had their fair shares of ups and downs concerning their respective languages, yet were overall self-regulating and somewhat pure. It seemingly wasn’t until an outside perspective began imposing themselves unto the two writers that they began to think differently and question some things that they never really thought had much depth.

alexie and tan woojin kim

The narrators of the two short nonfictional stories Sherman Alexie and Amy Tan describe similar situations regarding their upbringings, family, ethnicity, and most importantly, language. Given their backgrounds and aspirations, the two were bound to become extremely proficient in the English language as they show they are in the readings. In the reading Superman and Me, Alexie credits his adeptness and fascination with the English language and all the things accessible with a deep understanding of it to arrogance; arrogance that stemmed from being different and being outspoken about it. He is much more sympathetic to other Indian kids in school, as he once was a bright-eyed youngster that discovered his love of the language in a Superman issue. Tan, on the other hand, explores the communicative aspects of English, calling the different ways and manners in which she speaks to different people her “Englishes”. She also points out the implications of not being able to speak the language in an ordinary way, writing about her mother who was fluent in English in her own respect.

Automatically I can say I relate to Tan’s story much more than I can Alexie’s. My parents learned English after having to move here later in life, and don’t sound too convincing themselves. ‘Oh give it a break, what are they supposed to be, perfect, you miscreant son??’ No, no, no, at the very least they’re supposed to be able to talk to most people, which they can do just fine. And it’s not like there aren’t Korean communities, businesses, and churches all across New York, am I right? Speaking of which, coming from a Korean family, I might be expected to excel in my academics, with special attention towards STEM subjects; yet I always noticed I gravitated toward subjects such as history, music, English, and writing. Language’s ability to elicit different responses and emotions always intrigued me; and such curiosity led me to learn how to make people laugh, cry, sympathize, or how to piss people off or tease and flirt — you know, basic communication skills.

thesis/review woojin kim

What’s The Point? Summary

The thesis statement is a tricky but integral part of writing. It can sound quite simple when you strip it down to what it really is: an opinion. What’s often overlooked however is how we don’t always have the strongest opinion on certain subjects, and consequently have a difficult time forming a substantiated argument. The thesis statement is also delicate in that it shouldn’t be too “simple,” “broad,” or “speculative”. Of course, they can be if they wanted to be, since these are simple guidelines to help one triangulate a more concise, inquisitive, and interesting argument. One way to aid the overarching thesis statement is to propose “microquestions” that make for a more full-bodied argument.

Responding… Summary

Responding to the work of peers can easily turn into taking matters into your own hands. We easily forget that we are the readers and not the writers of these essays, and end up projecting ourselves onto papers that belong to others. The easy way to avoid this is to simply get in the mindset of a reader. Not a reader of a novel or a newpaper article, but of a fellow student’s paper. This means you’re in a position to offer your own thoughts and criticisms, see eye-to-eye with the writer. It can be easy to get carried away, but it’s much more rewarding to simply offer well-meaning critiques and suggestions.

prawject ppich wojn kim

Identify 3 possible topics for your paper (identify your top pick)

Episode of Norm Macdonald Has a Show

Episode of Fawlty Towers

[Episode of The Eric Andre Show]

Describe why you’ve chosen these (pros and cons of each)

PRO: Norm Macdonald Has a Show is a talk show has completely replaced the politics, virtue signalling, and Trump bashing of late night nowadays with absurd jokes, unheard and funny stories, and an on-set vending machine. CON: While being hilarious, the show goes out of its way to dodge political topics and events. Such a decision can easily be mistaken for “running away”, which other talk show hosts apparently run towards.

Fawlty Towers is an old British sitcom that used to air in the 1970’s, can now be viewed in full on Netflix, and is full of things that people today might find offensive and outdated. PRO: aired in a time and place before political correctness. John Cleese is known as an ex-member of the prolific comedy group Monty Python, who have made skits, movies, and jokes based on religion, politics, etc. CON: Can be hard to truly relate to due to it coming from a time and place far from the here and now.

The Eric Andre Show is another late night-esque show, but is completely surreal. PRO: The show is all about subverting typical television tropes and being an anti-talk show, and has much to offer. CON(?): is devoid of politics but full of offensive, dark, and absurd humor.

Write what your questions are about this assignment at this point

Does everything we watch nowadays have a political bias? Can a popular TV show give an opinion without it eventually getting skewed and taken out of context by certain media platforms?

process woojin kim

Introduction to Composing as a Process Summary

When writing, it’s easy to obsess over the final product. Ideas run through our heads before our pens ever touch a paper, or our fingertips a keyboard; as we realize these ideas, crystallizing them in words, we sometimes get hung up on little things. It’s important, then, that we zoom out and see the bigger picture — to see writing as a process. In the end, an excellent product is not without its history of revisions and do-overs.

Freewriting Summary

Throughout the writing process many find themselves barely able to communicate their thoughts. Unlike a conversation, a piece of writing has had much more time to collect itself and appear more sophisticated; it has the ability to change before final publication or print. Freewriting imitates the spontaneity and irreversibility of dialogue between people or even with oneself.

Shitty First Drafts Summary

To write a shitty first draft is to take the first and most laborious step in writing. You need the proper mental preparation to truly isolate yourself in the writing mind field. From this point on it would be advisable to simply scrawl out your thoughts in a stream of consciousness. The focus is never to “nail it” on the first try, but to get the ideas all drawn out; as soon you’ve finished that “first draft,” had a breather, it’s time to [figuratively] paint the town red. The first draft can be thought of as an ore deposit, and the second draft the extracted material.

Response

We often can get quite hung up on how to start an essay. Even still there is nothing quite as frustrating as not being able to break that initial mental block, discovering that there is but half the class period left to finish. With the freewriting approach, we are encouraged to just do it, to quit bottling up thoughts inside our heads and get something out onto that paper. But even when we finally put out, we end up correcting thoughts and sentences as they come, sucking up time and energy. I suppose the ultimate lesson here is that the first try usually won’t cut it, so just make it as crappy as possible so long as there’s something in there.

intersectional woojin kim

Dancing Around Objectification Summary & Response

Two dancers prance around naked on their own platforms, elevated for the viewing of all [appropriate] audiences. Men gawk and imprint their “objectifying gaze” upon the women, objectifying and dehumanizing their very beings. One dancer immerses herself into the act as she displays all her curves and a flute-like voice to an entranced viewership; the other dancer, unable to shake off a feeling of discomfort, awkwardly entertains a more hands-on crowd. Certain onlookers simply stare, wide-eyed.

Without bringing race into question, the scenes depicted could have been a day in the life of any burlesque dancer or exotic dancer in the Twentieth century. But Merlino, author of the article, makes clear that the individual scenarios of each woman had as much to do with race and social class as it did their racy clothing — or lack thereof.

The white dancer (or the one that got away) is attacked by the author for making a decision to run from her post, fleeing from her touchy audience. She is a “privileged white woman” able to “take back her own agency”. Is it not both of these women’s agencies to dance and strip in the first place? Is it not work that they willingly took?

Intersectionality 101 Summary & Response

Coined by feminist Kimberle Crenshaw, intersectionality creates layers of oppression based on the different identities that a person feels he or she (or zie, etc…) IS. Of course, this gives way to the creation of countless new identities and the apparent need to accept everyone, as to not offend anyone… With some time, “laws of intersectionality” were fabricated by Patricia Hill Collins, attempting to explain the theory that would eventually spawn an angry hate mob of social justice warriors and radical leftists.

The issue with interesectionality is that it creates a hierarchy of oppression, placing those who are “most vulnerable” to oppression based on identity at the very top of the pyramid, and those “least vulnerable” at the bottom. Explicitly speaking, your average white American male would be at the bottom, then building upward with the introduction of different ethnicities, religious beliefs, cultures, education and wealth levels, statuses, sexes (and genders), etc… As a result, there are new identities being born by the day.

Another problem arises when people begin to take offense at microaggressions, defined as “the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership.” By this logic, anything determined to be offensive to a marginalized people group is a worthless opinion, as is anything else that comes out of the “aggressor’s” mouth. We have also seen university professors declaring that the appropriate response to a microaggression is a macroaggression, or by layman’s terms: a knuckle sandwich… and also anything else necessary.

The Urgency of Intersectionality Summary & Response

Kimberle Crenshaw says female members of the black community in dire straits thanks to their intersectional identities. Notwithstanding the fact that intersectionality has blown up beyond measurable proportion in today’s social justice landscape, Crenshaw focuses on how being a black female in America makes it increasingly difficult for one to find work, dispute cases of discrimination in a court of law, and puts her at greater risk of police brutality and murder.

Ever-clearer becomes the scope of discrimination against minority groups and marginalized peoples in America with the theory of intersectionality. She didn’t get the job because she was a woman or because she was black — it was because she was a woman AND black. How illuminating. It is unfortunate that such a sheer number of black women were met with tragic fates in encounters with the police. If such happenings were on account of purely race, or purely sexism, further legal actions against the cops could be justified; however, championing the motto “say her name” and stepping on the graves of the dead women is simply useless virtue signalling.

We are not given context of the murders in the rapid-fire listing of names taken by the cops, which makes us wonder: weren’t at least one of the cops met with violence or resistance from any of the women in the long list of victims? Could Crenshaw have taken some things out of context in order to push a narrative? If so, how much of the presentation founded in objective facts and evidence, and how much of it is biased and simply there to stir hatred toward the police?