Sorry, I thought I posted this a while ago

The Black Panther Party Platforms lists demands of African Americans from society. They aren’t only demanding for their lives to be changed; they’re demanding to be given the same rights and privileges that anyone should be subject to while living in America. They don’t want to be judged for the color of their skin; The color of their skin shouldn’t limit them to what they do and do not deserve.  The demands aren’t what makes the piece radical, but the fact that they’re asking for these things in the first place, during this era of the Civil Rights Movement is what makes it so radical. The voice in SCUM Manifesto presents a different type of radicalness. It is a woman’s voice that is disciplining the male behavior. She is disciplining the man for not accepting who he is in nature; in other words, why does he want to be a female so bad? Of course, this isn’t literal; but what the writer means is that the male tries to make up for not being able to feel the compassion and intimacy that a female naturally possesses. Because he can’t be a female, he gets as close to becoming a female as he can; he starts a family with one, he even will cut off he genitals and change his clothing just to become a female. But either way, he will never have the female- like behavior; the genuine compassion that is vested in every female. This is radical because of how the male is depicted. Being that in society, males are looked at as the higher beings, she is taking a radical step in speaking against them. I think speaking radically is effective because it shows you aren’t afraid of the truth. Those who believe in the truth as well will have no problem siding with you.

The artwork that I chose to analyze t the MoMA was an untitled piece, painted on 1952. It was painted by Carmen Herrera, a Cuban who was born on 1915. The art piece is a synthetic polymer paint on canvas. It has a black and white stripes pattern that cuts across each other in zig-zag. On sight, it may get you a little dizzy, but after a few seconds of focus, you start to recognize that it’s a very nice pattern. The pattern of the painting reminds me of a Zebra’s skin pattern, but with a little twist to spice it up. According to the label of the painting, it was a “Gift of Agnes Gund and Tony Bechara” in 2005. Apart from the pattern, there is not much else to the picture, so with that said, the pattern is the focal point of the painting; it is what attracts the attention.

Step One: I walked out my door, took the elevator to the first floor. Got out the main door, and took a left on Morris Ave. Once I hit Burnside Ave and took a left. I walked until I hit the four train. Climbed the stairs to the train platform and got on the train. I got off the train at Grand Central and transferred unto the 6 train. I got off at 23^rd Street. Existed the 4 train through Credit Swiss building. Walked left on Park Ave, hit 24^th street then took a right until I got to the Baruch Building.

Step Two: As soon as I stepped outside, I smelled rain in the air, and indeed, I saw little drizzles of rain. I saw many faces walk past me but didn’t pay mind to anyone in particular. I heard nothing but the sound of the music I was listening to through my headphones.

Step Three: The second I saw the rain, I thought to myself, “ugh this is going to ruin my morning.” Whenever it rains, the trains delay. I have a midterm first thing. So I really need to get to class on time. As I stepped deeper and deeper into the rain, I started to realize that it was just mere drizzles – that the rain was not too serious.

Step Four: Little Timmy may or may not have walked past Gilbert. Lil’ Timmy may or may not have looked as Gilbert. Lil’ Timmy may or may not have noticed that Gilbert was amongst one of the only people outside who didn’t have an umbrella. Who cares, if he gets wet then he gets wet. Everybody is busy minding their own business. For all we know, Lil’ Timmy may have walked past Gilbert without even noticing his presence.

This passage told of the thoughts that goes through a child’s mind (more particularly, a boy) as he grows. The thoughts he has of his parents change as the boy goesthrough different stages of his life. It begins with the belief that the boy’s parents are the most important people in his life at the beginning of development. He looks tothem as if they are perfect and can do no wrong. He even wants to be just like them one day, more specifically, like his father, since he too is a male. As the boy grows,he gets into situations with his parents that make him believe that his parents aren’t as “perfect” as he thought. He sees other people’s parents and wishes that hisparents had some of those qualities; he isn’t satisfied anymore. With that dissatisfaction, he creates hostile images in his mind, because he can’t get his parents tochange the way he wants them to. But the only person he can realistically be hostile with is his father, because he too is a male. This will lead to him wanting to beaway from his parents (more specifically his father). Soon, he creates fantasies in his mind about how he wants his life to be once he is away from them, and that hewill do whatever he can to achieve that life for himself. (these fantasies are known as daydreams).  Another thing he believes might be affecting the way his parentstreat him overall is the fact that he has other siblings. So in his fantasy, he will imagine life without siblings. In all, the things that change a child’s view of his parentsas he ages are; he is frustrated that his parents aren’t the parents he’s always wished to have; the fact that the parent of the same sex doesn’t make that connection withthe child that he needs; that his frustration builds after creating a fantasy life that he knows he can’t have; and lastly, he has siblings in his way of having that perfectlife.

Whitman speaks of an “untranslatable self” in his poem “Song of Myself”. When he speaks of the self, he doesn’t just mean his actual body; he means the soul within him. Translators are people who move something from one language to another. Whitman is saying his soul is something that can not be translated. Before touching on why he believes his “self” is untranslatable, he discusses a few pointers about his “self. First of all, he begins the poem by saying “I celebrate myself, and sing myself”. This shows how he much he praises the “self”. Then he also speaks about the individual in his poem; he speaks of a unified democracy that’s is made up of many individuals. So while it is one voice of one nation, it is made up of different voices. Everyone’s voice is equal. Now to move on to why Whitman says the soul is untranslatable. It is something that’s cannot be put into another language; a person cannot be made into something else or mean something else like words can. If a soul has been given a meaning, that meaning will suffice forever; the person holding that soul just has to be able to live up to that meaning. So when the body dies, everything goes along with it. Not just the body parts (legs, arms, hair, etc.); but also all the memories and ideas and wonders of that “self” has ever had. All of that is terminated once the body is gone. The reason why these things are untranslated is because these things make up the person entire identity. No one else can have this same identity.

In the poem “I dwell in the Possibility” by Emily Dickinson, Dickinson is talking about poetry. She compares writing poetry and prose to houses. She starts off by saying that poetry is limitless. “I dwell in Possibility”; she could write about anything and be open about anything. “A fairer House than Prose” Then in this line she compares poetry to prose. “More numerous of Windows- Superior – for Doors”; she says that poetry has more windows and doors than prose, this shows that prose is more limited, you can’t go “out of the box” when it comes to writing prose. Overall, the poem just expresses the power and freedom associated with poetry. Not only in writing it, but also in reading it. The readers don’t have to just imagine what is strictly being said in the poem. They also have the power to apply the poem to whatever situation they are going through.

This poem connects to a theme in Jane Eyre which has to do with feminism. All through her life, Jane had to fight against being dominated by the men in her life. Men such as Mr. Brocklehurst, and even Mr. Rochester. In chapter 12, she speaks of the things that women are restrained from, and what their standards are in society. She says, “Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel- and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves..”. All through the book, Jane wants to break free from these stigmas. She wants to break free from the standard of society the same way a poem helps a writer break free from the constraints of prose. And she does break free by learning not to solely depend on Mr. Rochester’s love and money.

According to OccupyWallSt.org, the Occupy Wall Street Movement was a “fight back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process.” In other words, the citizens no longer trusted the big banks and how they operated, so they protested against the banks to let them know that they now oppose them. Prior to this movement, big banks and multinational corporations were ruling the country’s economic system for more than two decades. Why then do the citizens no longer want to be under its rule? This falls under the topic of Enlightenment, which was a movement that emphasized on reason, as opposed to tradition.

The 2008 recession was what sparked this Enlightenment movement; it opened the eyes of the citizens and made them question why those big banks were in power in the first place. Likewise, in the reading, once exposed to the idea of Enlightenment, “England had ended in the king’s execution in 1649; the French would guillotine their ruler before the end of the eighteenth century.” In Europe, citizens felt the need to get rid of their monarch simply because they no longer trusted them and no longer saw a reason why they should stay under their rule. The Enlightenment period brought about Individualism, the idea that you should be your own ruler, which triggered many European nations to change tradition to abide by this new idea.

Much like the case in Europe, the Occupy Wall Street movement was a movement against authority. That is one aspect of our contemporary life that Enlightenment came to life.

I wanted to submit another response but not as long as the previous one:

Talking about political life in America doesn’t just mean one thing. With there being many different beliefs and many cultures behind those beliefs, there are also many different ways that people do things and many different reasons why they do it. Just in our government for example, why are there 3 different branches that are in charge of separate things? It wasn’t a tradition before, there’s reasoning behind it. Long before the creation of America, all nations followed the tradition of a Monarch, which is under the rule of one person. America feared the idea of monarchy, although it was the tradition, they were skeptical about it and did not trust one person to be in control of many. Thus, establishing the three different branches, so that they can check and balance each other out. The reason is so that too much power won’t be put into one branch, let alone one person. That concept alone is a form of Enlightenment, and to this day, we still live under this “separation of power.”