Author: Awa Diawara

I took this picture in Brooklyn a few weeks ago. It’s the place where you can see the view of Manhattan from Brooklyn. I decided to oversaturate the picture and get rid of the shadows because I wanted to show the different colors that are in this picture. It was also a really warm day so I thought that this shot would give off a summer vibe. The girl lying down reminds me of a hot summer/warm weather. I also notice that brighter colors are connected to more positive emotions, and I want the viewer to feel that when they see this picture. The contrast between the red building, the bright blue sky, the grey rocks, and the greenish water all come together to create this image. When people look at this picture, I want them to feel happier/relaxed, just as the girl lying down.

The strategy I decided to choose was option 1. Option 1 made it way easier for me to expand on a topic and to give more examples. I was able to further build on my argument and make it sound stronger. I think I chose option 1 because it made it way easier for me to clear my ideas and organize them a bit better. I think the main thing that I struggled with was repetition. Not with just sentences but mainly words. Being able to look at a specific sentence and build on it made it so much easier to add to the paper. I used less repetition.

1. Reed makes several connections between the 1978-1992 retrenchment period and Covid-19 pandemic. For example, having to layoff 5000 staff and faculty. The same thing happened during the Covid pandemic. People had to be let go and lost their jobs. In both cases there were also many deaths. Deaths are being used as a metaphor in Reed’s text. Deaths being the death of opportunity and the deaths in covid being the deaths of people. During the retrenchment period, there were threats to close CUNYs such as Hostos and Medgar Evers. There was also a bunch of state and city budget cuts. All this were factors leading up to CUNY tuition not being free anymore. The Covid pandemic caused panic and less funding for CUNYs. People also lost their healthcare coverage. In both situations, people lost a lot.

2. Reed uses the term “Death cult” to indicate that the fact that CUNY is being harsh towards the minority because it isn’t free to attend anymore. It’s now the people who can afford it who attend the schools. CUNY used to be a place where everyone could attend. Everyone of all different types of ethnicities. People would attend CUNYs because they were affordable and open to them to continue education. But now, putting a price tag on education is now ending opportunities that people once had. It’s a death of opportunity. Hence the term “death cult.” It signifies how much CUNY has changed and an example of neo-liberalism. Something that used to be free and accessible is now something that’s limited to a lot of people.

4. The suggestions that Reed makes for anti-racist and anti-austerity groups at CUNY is to not quietly follow orders and “by forging active strategic collaborations across differences that can seize on this rare moment to attain multi issue transformations that were unthinkable even one year ago.” Basically using protests and labor movements to speak out about this.

CUNY of my dreams: https://jamboard.google.com/d/1k6rmztuIa9ll4KrsL_tCDaucLQHaInznoq2kRy_Itrc

 

After reading the article, it really exposed the things that were unsaid. For example, the fact that Biden chose Kamala Harris as his vice just because she was black. Her being black is a way for him to get more black voters which I think is insane. “That choice only accentuated his selection of a Black woman, Kamala Harris, as a running mate without offering an explanation of how such gestures toward change will turn into the material goods that millions of Black women desperately need.” I also noticed how he was a part of the 1994 crime bill, which painted out black communities to be seen as dangerous. The article says he’s avoided any direct apology, which says a lot about him. The “limits of representation” all depend on mainly race and gender, which is so unfortunate. The author goes on to say “Black women are overrepresented in the ranks of the poor, in part because they make only sixty-two cents to every dollar made by white men.” So I believe the way you’re represented depends on those factors of race and gender.

For my artwork, I decided to choose a South Korean show called “Sky Castle”. It was made in 2018 written by Yoo Hyun-Mi and directed by Jo Hyun-Tak. This show discusses the issues of Korean education and society, and how strict it can be. It also focuses on social class, and how poor people are looked down upon. It’s something like “If you don’t have the money, you can’t do it.” But the poor people prove them wrong.  Additionally, it shows the negative impacts it leaves on families and the pressure that students go through. Also to show how far some parents will go to get their children into the best schools possible through corruption.

The reason I chose this artwork is that it really interests me how different the education system is here in America compared to in Korea. When I say different, I mean by how strict it is and the pressure to do well. This pressure can lead to students committing self-harm, and ultimately ending their lives. It shows how far people are willing to go to be better than others just because they have money. I wanted to talk about this show in my essay and compare it to American education and society. This artist’s work attempts to expose the truth about how cruel the education system is and the corruption that goes on within the higher class. It shines a light on this issue that people don’t/can’t really speak out about.

I decided to focus on the Adrian Piper “Decide Who You Are, Anita Hill” artwork. It stuck out to me the most out of all the rest. The initial artwork shows a bunch of words above a picture of a young Anita Hill. The rhetorical properties relate to its meaning because the words on the picture say things such as “Don’t push it”, “Nothing’s going on”, “You’ll get over it”. Upon further research, I read that these were words said to people during the #metoo movement. Which was a time when victims of sexual assault and harassment came forward with their experiences. These words were said to them that just invalidated them. These words of invalidation were in red and I think that was meant to emphasize how often these victims don’t have much of a support system and are told that they’re overreacting and to just move on. This text resonates with social and political concerns of the present because these days, people speak out about their experiences. I feel like this artwork is just a reminder of the past and how people who actually spoke out were treated back then. Even today, some people’s experiences are still being invalidated. The conclusion that I can draw from this text is that art is usually a reminder of the past. It also can be used as a conversation starter, especially for important topics. One impact it has on political and social concerns is that it can inspire people to speak out about problems like this.

After doing the sentence analysis, I noticed that in my writing I use a lot of simple and compound sentences. I wasn’t as surprised because I tend to stick to using those structures more than  I do with complex and complex-compound. I also noticed that I tend to have a lot of choppy sentences within my writing. I’m not sure why that is. I usually cut my thoughts short to prevent run on sentences. I tend to use a lot of those as well. I feel like because this was a first draft, I was more concentrated on getting all my thoughts on paper. I wasn’t as focused on my sentence structures. I use first drafts as a way to get all my thoughts out, then the second draft is when I go through my sentences and start to notice the structures and organize them. In my final draft, I want to start using more complex, and complex-compound sentences. In my first draft, there’s a lot of compound and simple sentences. These changes can enhance my writing because with using more complex/complex-compound sentences I can go even more in depth with my words. Additionally, it can make my essay flow more smoothly. Instead of having all these short sentences, using the structures connect my sentences. Having just simple sentences in your essay makes it sound really choppy and it can disengage the reader. It could sound like a children’s storybook if you don’t include some other types of sentence structures.

After reading both of the articles, I realized that race matters depending on where you live. It’s unfortunate to say, but it’s true. I noticed that the “New York’s invisible Climate Immigrants” article, it spoke more about how these companies are buying people out of their houses, causing them to move out. Additionally, it speaks about affordability.  At one point she talks about how in a certain area, black families are the majority and own the most homes in an area in Brooklyn. These people are the most affected by it because they are the ones from who these companies are buying their houses. She says “Targeted intensely by subprime lenders during the housing bubble, they have consistently had some of the highest foreclosure rates in the city.”  That’s where I see a little similarity with the other article, “Racial Capitalocene.” While it’s not exactly about the same topic, the point of similarity is when it talks about how black communities and neighborhoods deal with having to live near toxic wastes. In both these articles, black communities are the target. “It showed that race was the single most important factor in determining where toxic waste facilities were sited in the United States.” The main idea for both of these articles is that race affects how you are treated. (In the context of living situations)