English 2150 Spring 2020: Writing and Displacement

This week, I’d like you to share and respond to any text about the coronavirus crisis you find interesting. This could be an article, a  news broadcast, a Tedtalk, a tweet, a photograph, a podcast, a film, an Instagram (or another online) post, a TikTok video, a political cartoon—anything that spurs some thinking about the crisis.   Please share a link to your text, plus a 300 words response that explains why you chose this text and what issues or questions you think it raises.  You are encouraged to find your own texts—whatever you think is worth writing about—but if you have trouble getting started, you might want to respond to one or more of the following:

○ Two Woman Fell Sick, One Survived Two Women Fell Sick From the Coronavirus. One Survived.  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/13/world/asia/coronavirus-death-life.html

○ 25 songs that matter now: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/11/magazine/best-songs.html?actio n=click&module=moreIn&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer&action=click&module=M oreInSection&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer&contentCollection=The%20New%2 0York%20Times%20Magazine#cover

○ Coronavirus explained in a TedTalk: Coronavirus Is Our Future | Alanna Shaikh | TEDxSMU  https://www.ted.com/talks/alanna_shaikh_coronavirus_is_our_future?language=en

○ Political cartoons: Corona News. https://www.usnews.com/news/cartoons/2020/02/28/political-cartoons-on-the-coronavirus

○ A soccer team is trapped: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/sports/soccer/wuhan-coronavirus-spain-soc cer.html?action=click&module=Editors%20Picks&pgtype=Homepage

○ Who will pay the salary of stadium workers? One player steps up. Pelicans Star Zion Williamson Pledges to Pay the Salaries for Staffers of the Smoothie King Center https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/zion-williamson-nba-stars-pledge-money-coronavirus

○ Podcast on the Coronavirus: Ologies “Virology (COVID-19) with Dr. Shannon Bennet + various ologists” https://www.alieward.com/ologies/virology

○ Researchers are using a World of Warcraft scenario to understand COVID-19’s spread: PCGamer article. https://www.pcgamer.com/the-researchers-who-once-studied-wows-corrupted-blood-plague-are-now-fighting-the-coronavirus/

○ The power of social distancing: https://www.horsesforsources.com/storage/app/media/2020/social%20distancing. png?fbclid=IwAR1dlnfTlkl408TJzbCEXvfY1dzntEl8whsehVGJwG3LZeDK2zn7G5 5jgY0

○ Here are the workers most at risk: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/15/business/economy/coronavirusworker-risk.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage ○ Lots of good info here: https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/coronavirus

○ A look at coronavirus through comics: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/28/809580453/just-for-kids-a -comic-exploring-the-new-coronavirus

○ Is paper money safe? https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-03-12/cash-coronavirus

○ How can we stop the curve of infection?: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

Hi Everyone,

See below for info about our Zoom call on Monday, April 6th.  You will note that I have scheduled this as a recurring meeting.  This means that, for the remainder of the semester, we will be meeting via Zoom each Monday morning at 10:00 a.m.  You can log on from a computer or from your phone.  If, for some reason, you already know that you will be unable to participate in Monday’s call, please email me, so that we can make alternate arrangements.

I miss you and hope that you are staying safe and healthy!

Professor Sylvor

Jennifer Sylvor is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: ENG 2150
Time: Apr 6, 2020 10:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
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Hi Everyone,

Now that the “Recalibration Period” is over, it’s time to get back to work!  Please get into the habit of checking this site every day.  This is where I will post assignments, share information from CUNY and Baruch, and provide you with information about our schedule for Zoom calls, office hours, and more!

• I have shared some information about support that Baruch is offering to students during these challenging times under the RESOURCES tab above.  Please take a look at it, and consider trying one of these support groups.  You may find it really helpful to connect with other students who are having an understandably difficult time lately! There is also a link to a wide variety of resources that CUNY has available for students, so please take some time to explore their offerings too.  If there is something you need that you don’t see covered here, please send me an email, and I’ll see what I can do.  We are all in this together.
• Your Literary Analysis essays are available on turnitin.com.  Once you have had a chance to read my comments, please email me to schedule a time to discuss your paper one-on-one.  These sessions can be brief, but they are MANDATORY.
• We will be having a ZOOM call on Monday morning at 10:00 am.  Stay tuned for the link to the call and more information.  We will be using this call to talk about your RESEARCH PROJECTS, your next major assignment.  I will be posting some information about the project in advance of our call, so make sure you check the blog before logging on to our call on Monday.

I hope you and your loved ones are staying safe and healthy!  I am thinking about you and looking forward to reconnecting on Monday.

Take care,

Professor Sylvor

Why Our Participation in the 2020 Census Matters Now More Than Ever
By Ecleen Luzmila Caraballo

 I chose this article because it the time of year where we all have to fill up the census. The census is an official count or survey of a population, typically recording various details of individuals. This is important because it ensures public services and funding for schools, hospitals, and fire departments. It also plans new homes, businesses and improves neighborhoods. The last reason is that the census determines the seats in each state is allocated in the House of Representatives. However, displacement is shown in the census because Latinos are not participating due to their citizenship status. Latinos fear that they would get deported or problems would be created. Before people learned about Title 13, the US penal code, Latinos would not file in the census. In 2010 at least 770,000 Latinos were undercounted or unaccounted for entirely and we can clearly see how this shaped their lives. In addition, with the coronavirus crisis occurring this affects the community. Some may not have the availability to use the internet so they will be miscounted. It’s known that if you don’t file the census online then people who work for them would assist you by going to your house and do it for you. Since people are losing their jobs, the assistance would decrease and some people may not even be counted. Homeless people would also be displaced because, in March, a lot of services were going to be provided for them so that the homeless people would be counted in the census. Once again due to the coronavirus, most of the events got canceled. The 2020 census obviously is getting affected by the coronavirus. Latinos should be aware that their information would not be shared by other parties. With all this going on, the 2020 census should extend their deadlines. 

Why Our Participation in the 2020 Census Matters Now More Than Ever

“If coronavirus spreads to this population, it could be catastrophic” by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon

This article is posted in CNN Opinion and it started with how a teenage girl, in december, how she did not know where her friends where because they were displaced.  I chose this article because since I started reading it, I felt nostalgic reading how the teenage girl just wanted to be in school. Same situation that is happening right now with COVID-19. People are being displaced to camps in which they are displaced from others and sometimes from their families. Right now with the COVID-19 it might be a chaos if one of does children gets infected. With this virus now, we have to think not only in New York but also others country that are not capacitated to get the virus. As soon as someone gets infected, they will have to be displaced to a place where they might be comfortable. Millions of people are being displaced, also children, where they don’t have the same resources, such as hospitals. As the article explains, this situation is urgent and we must help control it.

Link: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/23/opinions/refugees-displaced-people-coronavirus-threat-lemmon/index.html

I choose this text because I am a huge fan of the game and the game developer Rockstar Games. Though this game is the second one of the previous versions that came out a long time ago on different gaming platforms, this game historically speaking (and timeline of the game series) is the one that came first. Open world game set in the late years of the 1890s to early 20th century. Story of the game advances from ordinary groups of people (sort of gang type) consisting of old and young, man and woman escaping a town (Blackwater) after a massive massacre shootout with the national police shortly after robbing town bank. We have our main character Arthur, a loyal member of the family/gang that survived the shootout along with others, following orders of the slightly older man named Dutch. Being the one that’s leading the whole gang with him, throughout the game he is in constant need of money to get his family/gang out of the current situation that they are in. Displacement is a key thing that the family has to go through throughout this game that keeps them safe for a short amount of time in a way that they are not safe forever. After escaping blackwater, the gang find themselves escaped to the snowy mountains with a shortage of food and supplies, it is up to Dutch and the man to find a suitable place for them to camp until they are on their feet. Wherever they are following the story, they find themselves in constant threat where it’s from the rural gangs, the police, the people that they worked for (temporarily), or robbed. There are chapter within this game that tells us where we are in the story, and in each chapter, they are forced to move camps/temporary living situations because of some horrible things they had to do to, forcefully to get out of a situation, or the ones that they choose to because doing so would solve their problem which is to get enough money to travel overseas and leave bad things behind. People that are within the family/gang aren’t immediate family members that started out together but rather picked along throughout each chapter, whether they had to save them or the ones that helped prevent them from getting into a bigger mess they are in. Throughout the story, we see Dutch, our big decision-maker for the family ends up in a situation that gets him to lose most of the money that they saved from (robberies, helping rival gangs, gamblings, etc.) to new consequences that the gets himself into, but isn’t going to stop him from getting more. After seeing/experiencing these reoccurring situations, his family starts to disobey him and start to part from the rest of the gang, Arthur being the one to know, he suggests its best for them without letting Dutch know. Eventually, after these reoccurring events nearly half of the family members either part themselves from the gang or get killed in situations that Dutch and his man get themselves into, and at this near finale we find out that Arthur is diagnosed with Tuberculosis that starts to rot his lungs over time. In the finale, after gathering enough money by Dutch and his remaining loyal crew, we see that one of Dutch’s suspicious man Micah (the antagonist) snitched on them to the Pinkertons (national police that he was involved with). Shootout breaks out, Arthur with his last few days left fights of the Pinkertons along with the rival gang to keep few of the remaining/innocent people like the women and Jonh’s family escape  (the main character and the one that is going to be played as in the first Red Dead game). In the final scene Arthur dies, Micah is left alone and Dutch fleeing the scene all by himself later to reunite with Micah once again. Prologue continues after a couple of years of the Finale, we play as John and his future with his family and the old member of the family.

The film I chose for this assignment is Black Panther directed by Ryan Coogler. I chose this film because I was watching it with my younger brother recently and I remembered watching it for the first time last semester. An interesting aspect of the film is that displacement was shown both in a positive and negative manner. For example, the city of Wakanda goes through displacement because they are isolated from the world. People around the world perceived Wakanda as a poor country in Africa. However, Wakanda has the most valuable resource known as vibranium. According to the marvel series, vibranium is the cure to end humanity’s problems and create products that help people’s life. The leaders of Wakanda always kept it, as a rule, to never let the outside world know about their resources and displacement is clearly shown. The reason why people in Wakanda has multiple disputes on the controversy of sharing vibranium is that people want to use the resource to help others while the leaders don’t believe it’s the proper solution. For instance, displacement is shown in Erick Killmonger and his father because they want to help people of their own skin color by exposing vibranium to the world. However, T’Challa, known as the Black Panther, doesn’t want to let down the previous leaders and his roots/traditions. In the citizens of Wakanda’s perspective, displacement is shown because it is embedded in black history that those of the superior race, the Europeans, would take away the vibranium and use it for greed. This ideology that both sides have bring discomfort in their community and create tension between T’Challa and Erick Killmonger. The displacement of acquiring vibranium is both positive and negative. The positive side is that the people living in Wakanda remain safe and healthy for a long period of time. The negative aspect is that they don’t help other countries from their suffering. A statement was said by Erick Killmoger’s father that was that slavery could have possibly ended because the people of color would have better weapons to protect themselves. T’Challa at the end of the story exposed the displacement by telling people about vibranium in the United Nation conference. Another way I saw displacement in the film was women empowerment. This displacement is seen in a job way because women aren’t appreciated in our culture. But in this film we see women have powerful roles aren’t depicted with the same power as men. To sum up, displacement was shown in Black Panther and I liked to write about this because the film has a powerful message.

The book and Hulu show “The Handmaids Tale” shows the dark twisted dystopian world. Women were the target in this society. A fundamentalist Christian group take over the government and used the old Testament as a new social structure. This society strips women of all their rights and forced them into ranking where they play certain roles. There are wives, handmaids, aunts, ecnowives and unwoman. These were women before who had normal lives and jobs. But was forced to become part of this society where there was a lack of infertility. Causing “Handmaid” to bear a child for elite families. The Handmaids are ripped from their families and forced to bear a child for society. The handmaid was raped to conceive children and they did not have the rights of their kids after birth. June has ripped away from her daughter and husband and forced to serve her commander. At first, June was broken because she was beaten to submission, the Aunts took away everything forms her. But she becomes rebellious, outraged and brave when she realized she must fight. Displacement caused her to become stronger and fight the regime. June was an educated woman who also had a mother who fought for women’s rights before the fundamentalist group took over. June quickly makes plans and relationships with people like the driver to escape to Canada. She also become close to the commander to get benefits and use him in certain situations. June used her situations to play smarter and save herself. June taking her chance to manipulate the Commander and be taken outside. June knows that she needs to find her daughter and husband, she started to get out of her depression and take control of her life. June escaped with the help of Nick. You quickly realized that everyone is suffering and fighting their own battles. June helps others like Commander’s wife with her issues as well as other handmaids. Being displaced form, her life June learns to survive. She learns discipline and patience. June does not just save herself when she gets the chance. She helps her fellow handmaids being selfless at the time when you expect someone to be the most selfish. June plays a superwoman character; she represents a reflection of how strong women can truly be. That even if this is a dystopian world it reflects the patriarchal society, we live in. June shows how much a person is willing to fight and how they change as a person once they are displaced.

(P.S. It a really good show. It very dark and intense recommend it!)

All American by April Blair

I chose a Tv Show that I recently finished watching, All American. All American is a Tv Show streamed on Netflix and it is about a boy called Spencer James. Spencer James was a student in South Crenshaw high school where he played football. Spencer James was a teenage middle class boy who did not have a lot of resources. Until Billy Baker met him. Billy Baker is a recruiter from Beverly High, it was a more advanced high school with more resources than South Crenshaw. But, there was a problem. Billy Baker was convinced that Spencer was a good player for Beverly High but to play he had to live in Beverly High, where he did not have any family and his mother did not have the resources to move to Beverly. Spencer’S mom was a single mother living with Spencer and her other child Dylan. Billy Baker offered Spencer to move with them in their house so that he could play in Beverly High. The moment Spencer Accepted to move to Beverly with coach Baker, displacement started. Spencer who comes from a humble family where he has to work for anything that he wants. Now that he is living with the Baker’s, they have more commodities for Spencer. For example, where Spencer lived he had to take the Bus to go to school and public transportation. Also, every time Spencer goes out has to keep in mind the public transportation hours so that he does not miss it. As soon as he moved to the Baker’s house, Coach Baker offered Spencer a car so that he does not have to take public transportation. Not only this example, but also in the school. In South Crenshaw the school was not that big and the resources were limited. Now, in Beverly High Spencer has more resources. The displacement occurred not only in terms of the home but also with his football progress. This displacement was good for Spencer because in South Crenshaw he was not seen as the good player he was, and was not given the attention he deserved as a player. Now that he was in Beverly more colleges were looking into him and he was considered in the top #100 best football players of the nation. I chose this tv show because I just finished watching it and it shows that sometimes displacement is necessary to develop yourself. In this case, if Spencer did not move to Beverly when Coach Baker offered, maybe he would have not ended up going to one of the best colleges or would not be able to be recognized as one of the best players of the nation.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIaujmoukqU

The movie I selected to write the analysis about displacement is Ip Man 4: The Finale which was directed by Wilson Yip. This movie was released in 2019, and it is the fourth and last movie of a series of movies. All four movies show displacement in a different way. For example, the first one shows how Chinese people were being displaced in camps during a war against Japan. The second one shows the displacement when he moved from a Chinese city called Foshan to Honk Kong, and displacement is seen when this city’s martial art teachers do not accept Ip in this city. All movies are interesting to watch because they all have an important message behind. Ip Man 4 specifically show how Chinese people are discriminated in the United States. It does not matter the place or age of the people; Chinese people are discriminated, and this movie demonstrate different ways of how it happens. One of the characters in the movie is Yonah Wan, who represents how some Chinese people are treated at American schools. She fights do defend herself but other people do not believe her, she has to “live in the shadow” under American people, because when she tries to have success she gets bullied and the other students beat her up, and the other students target her and make her look like she did things that she did not. Another character is Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee is a teacher of martial arts in the United States, but other schools for American people do not believe in what he can do even though when he demonstrates to them his skills in his shows. As he says, he must fight American people in the streets all the time because he is targeted by those people. Another important character is Hartman Wu, who is a sergeant part of the US Marines Corp. Even though this character is a person that fights for the United States and he does all the possible to make the US Marine Corp. better and improve their combat skills, the American leader discriminates him and making him do a lot of extra work, and this leader reminds him all the time how superior American people is to Chinese people. The main character Ip Man shows displacement as soon I he gets to the United States. When he asks for a letter of recommendation he is instantly rejected, and his friend is reminded that he is only not fired because of his boss. After the main character fights for the Chinese people in the United States, at the end of the movie, when he realizes all of the discrimination to Chinese people in the United States he decides that his son is not going to go to the United States to study.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otI4pyQjb8w