JOSHUA VARGAS – English 2100 x 81: Fall 2020

Minorities and the media

Hello my name is Joshua Vargas and I’m going to be your professor this semester for the Minorities and the media course. My goal in this class is to inform my students of what is going on in the world around us and how the media portrays people versus how they actually are. This course will be broken down into three sections each section will count as 33 percent of your grade. We will meet Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10 AM, please be on time!

Stereotype teaching by the media

In this section of the class we will discuss why and how the media uses stereotypes and actually teaches people how to accept them and make it seem like they are okay to use. This section will include two papers and three quizzes, the papers will be fairly easy, we will also have a discussion on the topic you chose and give feedback during our class. We also be reading Noam Chomsky “media control” for this section

Decision Making

This is my favorite section to teach, in this section we will learn how the media controls everything. They will get one colored person and will use them as a way to say we are all diverse and will control everyone’s opinion because of that one thing.

This section on the other hand will require you to write on the discussion board on blackboard a simple recap of what we learned each class and to finish it off you will be assigned a 5 page paper and research a public case that fits what we’ve learned overall throughout this section. We also read Thomas de Zengotita “Mediated” for this section

Image making

The final section will be simple, we will talk about how the media portrays places in poverty and how they freely talk about minorities when in reality what there is saying is not true and it’s based on opinions not facts. This final section will include two papers and they will be 3-5 pages each, and a final that will be a breakdown of all three sections. You will have to write a 2 page paper in the end just giving a brief summary of each section and what you took from each one. For this section the reading will be Matt Taibbi “Hate inc”

I am so excited to teach you guys, my goal for this course is to inform you guys and make sure all of you gets something from this class, because a lot of you might think that this class will be useless and wont benefit you but in the end you’re gaining knowledge of how minorities like me are portrayed on tv and how we as the people need to come together and change this for a free and diverse America forever. If you have any questions please feel free to email me.

The Case for Reparations

Coats gets his message across perfectly, just by reading a couple sentences you can see how upset he is at the fact that the people in America owe black people all those years of slavery and of mistreatment. It’s like America is in debt to the African American people but no one is talking about this and top of all that people need to see the abuse that these African American people went through and it’s crazy to think that there is still people out there have this same mentality. White people during the segregation time would do anything to leave the black people with nothing, they pushed them out of there homes and even there jobs, I think coats message overall is that America owes African American people because of what they put them through.

Research Topic and Questions

Topic: Minorities and the media

Question: How has the portrayal of minorities in the media changed?

I chose this topic because there is a lot I can touch on when writing my paper and on top of that it’s nice to see how the media has changed for good and has allowed multiple people to benefit from it not just certain people. Moving on I will be researching about the artist that existed back 30 years ago compared to now and compare how different things are back then then they are now. I will also touch on racism and how things in that aspect have changed and how they haven’t.

Introduction to the new Jim Crow

The quote “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it” is saying that we have not ended racial discrimination towards minorities we have just narrowed it down and make it sound less harsh. I think that Now we have just adjusted to what people think is the racial discrimination solution but really we are living in racial discrimination just different. I feel as through out the years people have been brain washed to think that everything is okay and the problem has been solved but clearly it’s not because theirs still people out there who feel like they’re superior to others and are better just because of how they look, they feel need to harm or make someone feel bad about themselves because they think they’re better.

In depth look at YHLQMDLG, by Bad Bunny

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/bad-bunny-yhlqmdlg/

YHLQMDLG stands for Yo hago lo que me da la gana which in english means I do whatever I want, This album is what brought Bad Bunny to where he is now he became a global super star. In the Album he speaks about many different things and he made music for all his fans whether they want trap or just plain sad music he made it. Reporter Mathew Ruiz from pitchfork said “the album is almost flawless” which one hundred percent agree with, Bad bunny even said that this album is not his best one that he has a lot more coming and that just shows how much and how good he is. To me the album is the best album of 2020 hands down. The album came out in billboards top 200 in the world and for the latin billboards it remains number one after 8 months of its release.

Response

“Chinese and other Asian immigrants fought the bar on naturalization by arguing that they were in fact white and thus eligible for citizenship”

To me this stands out because people had to lie about there race to be accepted and to be given something that should be there’s in the first place. The minute you start lying about your background and who you are to please someone or to be treated equally that right away should tell you that it’s wrong. So for me this sticks out because people change who they are or at least try to so they can be treated equally.

Mockingbird by Eminem

Eminem shows the love he has for his daughter and his niece and how they are his world.

0:30, The video starts with Marshal looking at old videos of his daughter and his niece and it looks like he just is analyzing how they were and maybe how he misses them

1:00, Now it looks like he is just reminiscing about all the old times he had with his daughter and how different things are now and by the song it seems like he is expressing the struggle he went through before the fame

1:30, Now Marshal talks about his wife Kim on how things were once great and seemed like they would never go down hill but destiny drove them apart and they now are not together

2:00, He reminds the kids now that although things aren’t the same as they once were with Kim everything will be alright and him and his mom are okay in the end.

2:30, Now he talks about how Christmas once felt empty because there barely was gift under the tree and money was tight with the family.

3:00, He explains how him and Kim went there own ways and he flew to LA with DR.Dre to listen to his CD and get signed, things went good so he then flew them out to LA so they can all be together

3:30, He again is reminiscing and saying how he always only wanted to make them happy and give the world but he ended being all alone in a empty house by himself.

4:00, He ends the song by switching up the hook and saying he will never let anyone hurt his daughters and that he will always be there for them.

The song overall is eminem just venting in his song saying how he wishes things turned out a little different and how he was closer once with his daughter and now it seems like they have fallen apart and he is all alone just thinking and watching old videos of old memories.

Everything is in the language we don’t use

To me both articles were great and represent that actions mean a lot more then words and is what causes most things to go bad. People tend to say things, like for example that police keep our street safe and the reason they do things is a result of self defense when there is no reason for them to defend themselves in the first place. I feel like if people want to Argue that cops are in the right when they do all these horrible things they need to show proof with things that they do not things that they say, for example A cop can say they never did anything or they were just doing what had to be done because the victim was resisting but really there is videos and evidence that show that the cop was clearly in the wrong. My point is that people can say whatever they want but at the end of the day it’s there actions that count, it’s there actions that mean more then what they say in the end, so it’s always good to just sit and observe before just listening to what everyone says, be the judge of it yourself always!

Response to “38”

This poem gave me information about what was done to the people from Dakota. 38 people were hanged because they were fighting for the right to keep land that belonged to them in the first place. I feel like the author is very hurt and upset that the president who signed the emancipation proclamation did this to innocent people literally the same week it was signed. This poem differs from poems I usually read because it’s giving out such a big message that it’s unclear how the author made it fit so perfectly in a poem! While Listening to the audio of the poem you can hear how this is something the speaker has talked about a lot and that it bothers them so much how unfair her people were treated all because they wanted to protect there own land. “Everything is in the language that we use” this to me means that everything that has happen has happened not by accident but because people felt the need to do it and not just one person but a lot. The author of the poem also says “Real poems do not really require words” this is true and I honestly really like it because a poem to me is something you make a personal connection to, If you read it and it just means nothing then the poem has no meaning to you and you don’t think much of it. What the author want us to understand here is that people do things not thinking and don’t realize that they are hurting others.