In Jacqueline Woodson’s Ted Talk, “What Reading Slowly Taught Me About Writing,” she delves into the concept of how powerful words are. How it was viewed to be dangerous that her ancestors learned to read and write. This idea of word being dangerous is proven by the history that proceedes it, from the american revolution to people living under the nazi regime. It must be made clear that being able to read and write and intelligently express one’s self is not dangerous to your neighbor in fact it is instead dangerous to your oppressor. A common thread that all facisist and communist regimes have is the elimination of higher education and limiting who gains access to privileged knowledge, like the old saying goes, knowledge is power. By giving the power to everyday people you allow for them to take part in the communication and formation of ideas. The idea to invent the airplane, the idea to change from the gold standard to a floating exchange and the idea to write your loved one a poem is all because of the equal claim to the same power. In this ted talk it made me realise that we write how we think, so that our reader can understand us through our words. I find that I often like to read biographies because of this reason, it allows me to immerse myself in the life of another while it takes me from point A to point B in a person’s life. I’ve noticed with myself that the reason I particularly like this style of reading is because it breaks down a person’s life story into many short stories that set up the scene and circumstance to give you a full understanding of what it would have been like living at that time and place. 

 

I originally enjoyed the hotel corona blog post. But now I really admire the way it changed how I thought. I was raised in a household where all my cousins and all my uncles had served overseas. In a war that seemingly doesn’t end. My view was always pretty simple, there will never be peace, because people will never get along after so many years of hatred. But while listening to hotel corona it really did make me feel like there was hope, that deep down the brotherhood of man will be able to mend itself over time. I keep being reminded by my thoughts of what Ronald Regan said back in the day. “Perhaps we need some outside universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.” This makes me think that maybe ragan was taken too literally. Maybe he in fact was talking about an unknown threat, one that no one saw coming, could the COVID-19 virus be that threat?